


your transmission and your live wire

by rowankhanna



Series: we can be heroes [3]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cute, Depression, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, High School, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Illness, Modern AU, Recovery, Romance, Sassy Percy, drama club, lots of hugs from everyone, no magic, non-con elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10055918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowankhanna/pseuds/rowankhanna
Summary: Newt Scamander and Percy Graves have been friends ever since he moved to the States in seventh grade, but that doesn't mean they've always been truthful with each other; meanwhile, Newt learns the value of new friends.





	1. you're a juvenile success

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy knows Newt Scamander, and he knows when something's off with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from the song Rebel Rebel! It's one of my favourite songs.

Newt has known Percy ever since he moved to America. For one, Percy lives on the end of his street; two, he was given the laborious duty of being Newt’s guide to his new middle school school, and took it upon himself to give Newt the real rundown of the school, no bullshit, which he soon learned was not the correct approach for the short gingering boy, who stared blankly and seemed entirely unaffected by Percy’s no-bollocks approach.

“This is a nice school,” he said, beaming like torchlight.

“You think?” Percy asked, looking at him. Newt’s ginger hair glimmered in the hanging fluorescence. “I think that schooling is a waste of time. And it’s stupid. We don’t learn anything useful.”

“I’m happy being here,” Newt replied, playing with the strap of his backpack. “It’s nicer than back home.”

Percy sighed. “Well, _I_ think the only good part of school is the theatre. Come on, I’ll show you.” Newt’s face lit up the minute he heard the word ‘theatre’ and he bounded after Percy through the corridors, past the English classrooms and the Math classrooms and out into the Arts building, past a group of media students fighting with a tripod and past the drama classrooms into the theatre. The theatre was made up of the stage and the seating arrangements, and Newt clambered straight up onto the stage, jumping up and down and crisscrossing through the arrangement of furniture for the drama play of _Blithe Spirit_.

“It’s huge!” he yelled, and then spotted the piano and hurried down the stairs, taking a seat at the stool and half-heartedly playing a few bars of the opening of _Bohemian Rhapsody_. Percy swung down, too cool to use the stairs, running his fingers through his hair.

“You play?” he asked.

“A little,” Newt replied. Percy raised an eyebrow. “Maybe a lot.” He giggled bashfully.

As much as Percy didn’t really get Newt and Newt didn’t really get Percy and his eternal rants on the uselessness of school, they stuck to each other like magnets, mostly because neither of them really had other friends. They sat in corridors at lunchtimes, took the same classes, revised together. They went to the same high school. They traded books, listened to each other’s music through each other’s earphones (while Percy found himself with an intense fondness for Newt’s eclectic tastes, Newt never could get into Percy’s heavy metal or extreme punk). Percy couldn’t find himself letting Newt down, even when he made himself new friends – he would always want to see Newt, see his messy hair, his pulled-up knees, his tightly-laced boots.

They had been walking through the corridors together at high school, enjoying the fact that they were no longer freshmen to be casually abused, on the way to their common room, when Percy spotted the poster. He elbowed Newt, who started and glanced over. “We’re old enough now, you know.”

“For what?” Newt asked, looking up. He was still shorter than Percy; puberty had not quite graced him with a growth spurt yet, so he had to make do with being at shoulder level. He was almost embittered by how late puberty came to boys – even the girls towered over him now.

“The drama production. The one that we’re allowed to do once we’re not fucking freshmen anymore, like being a head shorter is some kind of a problem.”

“Oh!” Newt grinned. “Right; yes, we need to sign up.”

“What do you plan on signing up for? You’re going to audition for the lead role, I assume?”

“Lead role? Of course not. Backstage somewhere.” Newt pushed his hands into his pockets, narrowly avoiding jabbing Pickett in the eye (“sorry,” he whispered). “I think it would be nice to maybe take up a role in production design, or something similar.”

Percy looked at Newt as if he might’ve grown three heads – maybe even four, for the intensity of the stare. He couldn’t believe his ears. Perhaps the wax was getting to them; that, or he was finally hallucinating. All those drugs were bound to catch up to him. “Sorry,” he said, but he never said it with Newt’s gentle British grace, “did you say _backstage_? Newt Scamander, brother of Theo Scamander, theatre legend, backstage? Don’t you fucking even dare.”

“I dare,” Newt replied, pushing open the door to the common room. It was mostly empty, bar a boy in the corner with a bowl cut sitting rigidly with his face buried in a textbook, and a group of friends idly chatting around the surprisingly plush sofas, who all looked identical to Newt – same hair, same earrings, same down jackets, same high-waisted jeans with an average button count of about four, same caked-on layers of makeup. “I’m not suited for the stage. I don’t like it there.”

“Newt, for fuck’s sake. You were amazing. You’ve been amazing in every production we’ve done. You were amazing in drama class.” Graves took a seat at the table, taking a slightly fusty biscuit from the plate in the centre and eating it whole as if he were on Jackass and doing it for a dare.

“I’d rather not be on stage anymore except to set it up,” Newt replied, pulling a wooden lovebird brooch from his bag and fastening it to his coat, alongside a growing collection of animal pins he’d bought from a market.

“You told me you were failing shop class.”

“I got some help.”

Percy scratched the back of his neck (he needed a haircut; it was beginning to grow into unruly tufts). “I can’t believe you, Newt.”

“I can’t believe you don’t pay attention to me. I told you someone was helping me.”

Newt made it into production several weeks later; while Percy was acting in one of the lead roles, he was backstage, scurrying about after the set designer and helping make props. He had never really had friends before, bar Percy, but the backstage crew seemed to accept him like one of their own, parading him around (“we have some hope for the future!”) and teaching him everything. He found himself spending less time with Percy and more with the backstage crew – Jacob, who was only in props because he had failed to get in again; Sera, their single-minded costume designer and assistant stage manager who had one goal and that was to have everything perfect; and Abernathy, another boy from Newt’s middle school, who was the junior on the set design, and who Newt spent most of his time with as they worked together, painting, up ladders and lying on the floor, their shoes splotched with paint splatters.

Percy caught Newt on his way traipsing out of the building on a Thursday morning, in the middle of a period. Percy was smoking. He always was. He hadn’t seen much of Newt lately, just snatches of ginger half-curls and huge blue coat pushed in next to the other kids from the backstage crew.

“Where are you going?” he asked. Newt started, spinning around, eyes like saucers; a deer in the headlights. Or a rabbit, considering his stature, though he _did_ seem to be sprouting a few inches; his ever-long trousers were starting to look the right length.

“To – to the nurse,” he replied. Percy raised an eyebrow. Newt sighed, relaxing his tensed arms and running a hand through his hair. “Didn’t feel like going to class.”

“Join the club.” Percy offered a cigarette uselessly, though Newt unsurprisingly rebuffed it (he occasionally smoked, but never in school and only other peoples’ cigarettes), instead choosing to eat a bar of Dairy Milk. “I haven’t spoken to you in a while. Enjoying your new friends?”

“It’s no snub against you, I promise,” Newt replied openly. “They just invite me out everywhere. And they’re not quite as cynical.” Percy snorted, ruffling Newt’s hair, though he stopped, feeling the tension in him; he had noticed, not easily, that Newt had not quite seemed the same. Newt did not skip class; Newt did not tense at having his hair ruffled (he was tragically used to it); Newt did not stare out of windows and sigh wistfully like he was in a Jane Austen novel. He’d seemed like he was in another world lately, though Percy wasn’t entirely sure that Newt was capable of giving him a straight answer if he bothered to ask.

Newt rested his head against the cold brick of the school building. “You remind me of a song.”

“Oh? And what would that be?” Percy asked, amused, exhaling a perfect ring of smoke, watching Newt appreciate it silently, quiet wonder in his blue eyes.

“ _Alouette_. It’s a French children’s song, about plucking the feathers from a lark.”

“Oh, yes. I know the one. _Alouette, gentille alouette, alouette, je te plumerai_?” He paused to laugh as Newt joined him, the melody irresistible. “And you’re the lark, I presume?” He ruffled Newt’s hair again, waiting – yes, there it was, the tension! What was it? What was bothering Newt? He was never bothered in that way – he seemed awkward, sure, but he never seemed _bothered_ like this. “ _Je te plumerai la tête_.”

“I don’t know why it reminds me of you.”

“Is it because you think I’m cruel?”

Newt looked up, startled. “I’ve never thought that. I don’t think I ever would.”

Percy snorted. He couldn’t say he believed Newt on this one.

It took Percy a long time to figure out what was bugging Newt – he was no detective, really, but he was urged by Tina Goldstein, a classmate and mutual friend of his and Newt’s, to find out what was going on and to help his friend out a little, but when he did, he almost dropped the world that he balanced on his shoulders.

Newt Scamander was gay.

Unfortunately, Percy did not find this out the good way. He did not find this out in the coming out with hugs and reassurances and cups of coffee way. No, he found this out in the walking in on Newt and Abernathy stuck together like magnets way, their arms wrapped around each other like they were pieces of a puzzle in the midst of being slotted into place. Abernathy sprung backwards so far that it was almost impressive, and Newt just stared back at Percy, his expression impassive – it almost felt like a challenge – while Abernathy came forward, hands up in the air, his features painted deep with worry.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he pleaded. “ _Anyone_.”

“Okay,” said Percy. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

“You – you really can’t tell anyone.”

“As I said.” Percy stepped backwards. “Leaving now. Am most definitely not on my way to tell everyone, in case you’re concerned.” He shut the door in his own face and stared at it for a while, into the chips of paint and at the grubby handle. Newt was gay. How had he never known? Why had he never been told? Did Newt not trust him? And was this kid – this stupid kid with the eyebrows – the reason that Newt had been different? Was he good? Was he bad? Was he upsetting Newt – was that why he had been so unresponsive lately? Percy was just busy resisting the urge to punch him in the face.

He caught up to Newt later that day, on his way home, just before Newt put his earphones in. “Hey,” said Percy. Newt looked up.

“Hello,” he said. “You’re here to talk to me about earlier, aren’t you?”

“No. What gave you that idea?”

“Because you’ve never once walked home with me the entire time we’ve been at school, even though we live on the same street.” He looked back down, winding his earphones around his finger and then unwinding them again, a nervous habit. “Go on. Ask me what you want to ask me.”

Percy sighed. “Where do I even start asking?”

Newt smiled. “His name is Abernathy – well, it’s not, that’s his surname, but it’s what everyone calls him. He’s the one who’s been helping me out in shop class (he’s really good), and we work together in the production.” He looked up to the sky: grey, flecked, cloudy, darkening at the corners of his vision. Newt was British enough to know that this was the universal symbol for _about to rain_ , so he pulled Percy into the nearest coffee shop (a Starbucks; oh, how Newt loathed over-commercialized coffee chains the way that Percy loathed school, but as he entered, the sky burst and broke its waters down on the street, so he thanked his lucky stars that it was there) and ordered for the both of them.

“I thought Abernathy was as straight as a knife edge,” Percy replied, carrying both their coffees to a small table in the corner, nestled away like a peculiar egg. “And, frankly, what the fuck attracts you to _him_? He’s so goddamn... I dunno. Normal. And his eyebrows are stupid.”

“Should I only date strange people? And what constitutes not normal, exactly?”

“You know what I mean.”

Newt chuckled. “I know.” He added some sugar and idly stirred it.

“Tell me. What the fuck do you see in him, Newt? Really. Because I don’t see anything in him, and nothing that would be good for you.”

He shifted in his chair. Percy’s gaze was beginning to feel like it was boring a hole into him. He tried to focus away from it, honing onto the music in the Starbucks: jazz, probably a Spotify jazz playlist; he could hear the whistling of machines and clinking of cups and buzz of conversation. He could feel the chair underneath him and against his back and his feet on the floor and the handle of the mug in his hand and he could feel his hair where it cascaded down his forehead and was tucked behind his ears.

“He’s nice. He helps me. He –” Newt bit his tongue. He was not going to cry – not now, not ever, and not in front of Percival Graves. He wanted to cry. He didn’t want to be interrogated: interrogation brought back his worries. “I don’t know. I thought I could trust him. When you caught us – he, I – he yelled like that, and it hurt. But up until now, he’s been so good. He makes class so much easier for me, because he cares so much that I do well, too.”

“Newt.” Percy reached his hand across the table.

“No. Don’t you dare.” Newt was quiet, but Percy jerked back anyway. “He’s special. Please don’t ruin this for me.”

“It’ll ruin itself.”

“Then let it.”

“Alright.” Percy sighed, brushing some of Newt’s hair out of his eyes. He tried to think of a way to change the subject. “How’s the schoolwork going? Same as ever, brainbox?”

“Exactly the same. And I’m assuming that you’re still all for the downfall of the education system?”

“You know me too well.” Percy smiled.

They ventured out when the rain had finally turned to a simple drizzle, and Newt directed his face to the floor, letting the rain rush over his hair and down the back of his neck, while Percy walked with his head up, exuding the kind of confidence he’d always had where Newt never did. Their use to each other caused them to walk almost completely in step – Newt knew where to slow down and Percy where to speed up, and they sauntered along, ever so slightly out of sync.

“I have this feeling that you want to sink into that pavement,” said Percy. “You’d suit being a part of it.”

Newt looked up with abject confusion, then realised he was wearing a rust-coloured sweater with a speckled beige shirt underneath and a pair of raw sienna jeans, and while the pavement looked slightly grey while wet, it was usually brown, much like his ensemble. “Is that meant to be a compliment?”

“No. It’s an insult, fuckface.” Percy ruffled Newt’s hair affectionately as they came to his door, his words meant in the same kind of jest he always spoke them with (to Newt, anyway). “Well, keep at it, Scamander. And if Abernathy causes any trouble, I’ll beat him up for you.”

“What kind of nice bug bit you when I wasn’t looking? I’ll treat the bite. I’m good at that.”

“Fuck’s sake, Newt. I can be nice occasionally. Sometimes, and only ever sometimes, all that rage that possesses me for ninety-nine-point-five percent of the time goes away.”

“Please let this go away. I just want to hear you ranting about how much you hate the establishment again. It’s not right seeing you not looking angry. Smiles don’t suit you.”

“Fuck the world and everyone in it,” Percy said curtly, prompting Newt to burst into laughter. “There we go. Punk Percival is restored. The world is back in order.”

“You ought to go. You’re going to get soaked if you keep standing in the rain.” Percy nodded, watching Newt produce a set of keys from one of his many inner pockets and disappear indoors, and then he clicked his tongue and set off himself, grunting as he stepped indoors – while the rain had not been hard, it had soaked right through his tartan trousers (Newt had not been exaggerating; Percy was a punk, albeit a slightly classy one). He changed out of them and hung them up to dry, and as he made his way to sit down on the black leather sofa in the living room, heard his phone buzz. He picked it up.

_Please don’t tell anyone. They’ll kill me. –Abernathy_


	2. he was awful nice - but really quite out of sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abernathy is a little bit of a nervous wreck, but he adores Newt and his strange ways all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Abernathy needs more representation! Also, the title is from Bowie's Lady Stardust.

Newt was growing. He was hardly the last boy of sixteen to grow, but it had taken him long enough and all his friends seemed to have hit their growth spurts before him, and he had barely noticed it until he found himself one day sitting with Abernathy in the library and looking down at him. Abernathy looked up from the textbook they were sharing.

“What is it?” he asked, bemused.

“Nothing,” Newt replied, smiling. Abernathy looked at him, a little breathless.

“You’re real pretty when you smile, you know that?”

Newt wanted to kiss him there, he really did. He would’ve given his right arm (though then he supposed he wouldn’t be able to use it then) to clasp both sides of Abernathy’s face and kiss him into a small and pleasant oblivion, but he couldn’t kiss Abernathy anywhere unless they were in private and the paranoid boy had checked that no-one was coming and that they were out of sight as many times as possible before Newt would politely take him by the sleeve and drag him away from the door. But he just bit his bottom lip and went appropriately red at the comment.

“So are you,” he said, and fell back into making notes on Martin Luther King Jr. without so much as a heartbeat passed. Pickett scurried out of his pocket and ran along his arm and Newt lazily tickled the rat’s head, barely noticing until Abernathy yelped and fell out of the booth they were sitting in, scrambling back on the floor.

“RAT!”

“Oh, bugger,” Newt said to himself, grabbing Pickett and quickly depositing him into an inner coat pocket as the librarian, a lanky and short yet fearsomely intimidating man they all knew as Red for his love of the colour (his ensembles were terrifically crimson) came barrelling over, but he paused when he saw the quiet eyes peering through a mess of hair back at him.

“Again, Mr Scamander?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Incorrigible.”

“I’ll let you off for the use of the word ‘incorrigible’, but I swear, if there’s another rat incident, you’re not allowed back in this damn library. Understand?” Newt nodded, avoiding Red’s insistent glare. “Off you go.”

“Thank you, sir.” Newt held out his hand and helped pull Abernathy from the floor, gathering his books up and leading him out into the corridor, ignoring Abernathy’s stumbling surprise.

“What was that?” he demanded, trying to sneak a glance into the depths of Newt’s coat. “Was that – was that a rat?”

“Yes. It was. Please don’t make a fuss again.”

“Oh – Newt, I’m sorry –”

Newt looked down at Abernathy’s head, bobbing with every step. He sighed. Being angry at Abernathy was almost impossible, because he always _was_ sorry. He stumbled in his entirety the way Newt stumbled sometimes over understanding people. The corridors were empty as they always were during classes (anyone with free periods bundled into their common room or the library, and Newt always took the routes that avoided the toilets, which became strange social spots), and Newt, casting a cursory glance around, gently ran his hand through Abernathy’s hair. “That’s okay,” he said.

Abernathy looked around warily too, but when he was satisfied that the corridor had been entirely empty, he ventured a smile as they exited the building, out into the fresh air of the campus. “The thicket’s growing something awful,” he said, pushing his way through the shrubbery; they were making use of the fire exit, the quickest way between the two buildings, and while Newt had never minded ducking beneath overgrown branches that scraped his head and clambering over bushes, most students certainly did, even those who were regular users of the route.

“Isn’t it just? It’s certainly sprouted up lately.”

“Like some of the rest of us,” Abernathy replied, glancing up at Newt, who was angling one leg over a slightly displaced tree trunk. Newt paused and almost fell over as his leg came down, entangling itself in some leaves. Abernathy smiled at him – it was no ordinary smile; it was a smile as if Newt was quite something else (which, he supposed, he was), and he took a step forwards, narrowly avoiding tripping up, and pressed his lips to Newt’s – soft, inexperienced, gentle, wary, and he probed the corners of Newt’s cut and chapped lips as if he were a maze, and when he pulled back he placed his head on Newt’s shoulder, the other boy placing his arms around Abernathy’s back, taut against his slightly short black greatcoat.

They separated after a while, continuing their great voyage across the several meters between the campus before pulling open the fire doors of the next building, appreciative of the flat ground beneath their feet. The common room was quiet when they stepped inside it, Tina napping in the corner and Jacob eating scones while copying down notes, preparing for the same history test as Newt and Abernathy. He looked up and smiled at the two of them, his voice lowered to avoid waking Tina:

“In trouble with Red again?”

“Quite.” Newt took a seat opposite Jacob and accepted an offered raisin scone. “Oh.” He looked wistful as he chewed it, the taste of raisin exploding in his mouth. “It tastes like the ones back home – no. It tastes like home.”

They met again after school, after a long lesson of English for Newt and a slightly shorter lesson of Chemistry for Abernathy, who desperately wanted to hold Newt’s hand (battered and rough with actually working in his shop classes), but he made do with walking by Newt’s side as they exited the campus, an unusual pairing. Newt pulled on Abernathy’s hand, briefly, for a moment.

“Want to go somewhere?”

“O-okay.”

Abernathy had never frequented coffee shops, and being in one would’ve been an entirely novel experience in itself, but he had just walked into a coffee shop that looked like the worst of 60s and 70s interior design combined with the tackiest of furniture and the most obtuse of music choices. It was kitschy and bizarre yet somehow absolutely wonderful at the same time: it radiated joy and happiness, and several cuckoo clocks decorating four independently styled walls burst out into syncopated song as four o’ clock rolled around. Abernathy, who had been born straight-laced in a suit and tie, wasn’t sure entirely what he was experiencing, but something about it struck his heart the way Newt did: the world, in its beautiful eccentricities.

“Hey, Newt! Brought a buddy?” inquired the ginger behind the counter, which was piled so high with thrift store goodies that it was barely a counter and more of a storage medium. From behind streamers and painted cardboard stars, Abernathy could make out a selection of sweets behind glass, stacked on several shelves, wrapped in multicoloured glossy paper. “Looks a bit plain, I reckon. Should I fix him up with a sense of style?”

“No thank you,” Newt replied, eyeing the barista’s neon acid trip shirt, several sizes too big and tucked into brown pinstripe trousers. “I’ll have the usual. ’Nathy?”

Abernathy, caught in a reverie, started and stared up at the chalkboard on the wall, written in bubbly large script. Every coffee was flavoured, and every flavour seemed inedible, some illustrated with tiny badly-drawn cartoons that he couldn’t decipher. He scrambled for something that he might be able to drink. “Er... Can I get a Matchmaker hot chocolate?”

The man behind the counter scoffed. “Matchmaker hot chocolate! Who’s this boring old fart?” He shook his head. “Order up!” He reached up with an excited yowl and pulled on a pull cord which set off a toy train on tracks suspended over their heads, and Abernathy stumbled away and into a hideous pink floral armchair in front of a scuffed wooden coffee table.

“This place is insane,” he stammered. Newt laughed as he sat down on the sofa opposite.

“Yeah. It’s why I like it.” He took Pickett from his pocket and placed the rat on his shoulder, letting him sniff around. “This is Pickett. Pickett, Abernathy; Abernathy, Pickett. He’s my rat. He’s perfectly hygienic, I assure you, and he’s very well-behaved, if not a little too inquisitive for his own good. And _entirely_ incorrigible.”

“Oh.” Abernathy kept his distance, eyeing Pickett warily. “I don’t really like – er, rodents. Nothing against them. Just not a big fan.”

“Most people aren’t. But they’re perfectly pleasant little creatures; very intelligent, rats. And he’s with me all the time. We’re friends.”

They were interrupted by the arrival of their drinks, held on a green and orange polka-dot platter, and the ginger man set down each of their cups: for Newt, a cup with a games display that showed up as Mario mid-leap over a pipe when it was heated; for Abernathy, a perfectly plain-looking white mug with a moustache painted on the bottom. The sudden sighting of the moustache almost made Newt spit out his Starburst tea with giggles.

“Oi oi, Pickett,” the barista said cheerily, giving the rat a little scratch between the ears from his new perch in Newt’s hair. “Enjoy.”

Two mint Matchmakers were placed in Abernathy’s hot chocolate; Newt nabbed one and ate it with surprising deftness, and the other Abernathy used to stir his hot chocolate, looking at it like it might’ve been possessed. Newt could tell him it wasn’t, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t’ve worked.

“Hey, Newt, I’m sorry about earlier. I’m a bit bad about animals, you know. I didn’t mean to rat you out – oh, _drat_ , I didn’t mean that! – but...”

“I know,” Newt said softly. “It’s okay. As long as you don’t scare the rest of my menagerie.”

“You’ve got more? Rats, I mean?”

“Oh no, Pickett is my only rat. I keep birds, hamsters, gerbils, cats, dogs, degus; if it’s in a pet shop, I probably have it.”

“And fish?” Abernathy was getting interested now, leaning across the table. “Do you have fish?”

“I have an axolotl, but I haven’t had fish since I was young.”

“Oh, by Lewis, that’s incredible!” Abernathy was almost off his feet, struck by the quiet depths of Newt’s life, of his collection of creatures, of the scuffs of his collars and rips of his shirts, of the way he was so much more than his humble blue eyes and fumbling hands. There was something profoundly striking about him that Abernathy wasn’t sure he could let go: he was just so much more. Newt smiled at him; he thought he might melt into the seat.

“Thank you,” said Newt with the gentlest of laughs. “Most people just think I’m crazy.”

“Oh, but in the best way,” Abernathy insisted and he stood up, squeezing in next to Newt on a leather two-seater that was more of a single seat, and he gathered his nerves, ignoring the other people around him enjoying their peculiar coffees, and he placed his hands on either side of Newt’s face (it was so soft, a little marred by some newly growing stubble and patches of acne) and kissed him, Newt’s eyes half-lidded when he pulled back. “Oh, good gravy, Newt.”

Newt laughed, like an open door, and he ran his fingers though Abernathy’s slicked-back hair. “Merlin’s beard, James.”

Abernathy had become known entirely by the use of his surname, to the point of which that he struggled with remembering his own first name and, on occasion, when his mother yelled for him, would stare vacantly into the distance before realising that yes, that was his name, and yes, she was furious. He didn’t even know that Newt had _known_ his first name, never mind that he could possess the ability to say it so beautifully, like a prayer, like exaltation. He found himself with his lips on Newt’s, soft, irresistible; where before he had been terrified of even so much as brushing Newt’s hand, the sound of his own name had almost unlocked him, unravelled him.

Newt went to pay after a while. The ginger behind the counter was neatly repairing a sewing machine that looked like it had seen much better days and he looked up with pointed interest. “Didn’t peg him as the type for you.”

“You know I don’t have a type,” Newt replied, watching the numbers on the screen of the sticker-covered till change as his order was rung up.

“You have a type for strange people,” the barista amended, passing a small one-inch button advertising the shop over to Newt. “You must be rolling in these.”

“I like to wear them all at the same time and look like a pin board.” The ginger laughed at this, a joke tailor-made for him, and tipped his rainbow-coloured bowler hat.

Newt headed back over to Abernathy and fastened the button to his coat as they left, the streets slick with rain.

“I’m glad I met you, Newt,” he said honestly, looking up with that sense of awe he couldn’t stop painting across his features, and, figuring that he’d already been reckless and that this couldn’t be that bad, took Newt’s hand, so much bigger than his, warm and calloused, and if the world had ended in that moment, Abernathy would’ve ended it a happy man.

He headed back into his house after parting ways with Newt feeling accomplished and humming a tune that he’d found Newt singing earlier in the day, startled to find his mother waiting for him, blocking the doorway to his bedroom. Her expression was made of thunder.

“Son,” she said, “I think we need to talk.”


	3. some things are meant to be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt struggles, but there are highlights: drama production, Percy, Douglas the bearded dragon.

Newt didn’t see Abernathy until the day after; he was spending lunch with Percy, having been unable to find his new boyfriend. Abernathy was a state; he wouldn’t look up, not even at Newt, and his right eye was swollen up in an ugly purple bruise, a few raw cuts lining the top of his lip, and when he did see Newt, he scurried away like a rat, but Percy made a lunge and caught him by the sleeve.

“Wanna tell me where you’re going?” he asked. Abernathy took one look at his looming figure and his dark brow and squeaked.

“It’s not my fault!” he shrieked. “Not at all!”

“Explanations. Don’t throw useless words at me.”

Abernathy took a glance over at Newt and almost wept just at the sight of him. “I can’t be with you, Newt.” He scrunched the fabric of his sleeve, looking away. “Aw, heck, Newt, I really like you, but my mom...” He proffered his puffy eye at this. “It can’t... I can’t... I want to, but she’ll hurt me and then it’ll get you too and I don’t want that for you or anyone, really.”

Newt exhaled slowly and stumbled over it a little. He put an arm around Abernathy and crushed their figures together, running his thumb in circles on the side of Abernathy’s neck. “I’m so sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.” His breath hitched. He felt guilty – he didn’t know this was going to happen; if he had, he never would’ve accepted Abernathy’s invitation of a date, never would’ve let it get this far.

“Aw, that’s alright, Newt. You didn’t know.” Abernathy pressed his face into Newt’s jacket, enjoying a deep inhale of Newt and his strange smell of cat and bird and straw and yesterday’s cologne that he’d forgotten to put on today. “It was real nice.” He wanted to never let go, knowing that he might never be able to smell that smell again, but disentangled himself from Newt’s arm, shifted the strap of his rucksack, and headed off with a sad smile.

“I told you he was bad news,” said Percy. Newt turned to him, and Percy instantly regretted his words when he saw the tears burning in Newt’s eyes and the hurt that streaked his face in messy paint strokes.

“Can’t you try to not be an arsehole sometimes, Percy?” he asked, and walked away, squeezing his eyes shut, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. He didn’t wipe them away. He didn’t think it right.

Percy didn’t speak to Newt for at least two weeks; he knew Newt was in, because they shared classes, and Newt would sit on his own, staring listlessly out the window and occasionally starting in sudden remembrance that he was in the middle of a classroom, a working environment, and he would pick up his ballpoint and start writing, but he always ended up distracted again. Percy tried to find Newt to speak to, but despite always being the one who had showed Newt around school, Newt seemed to know it better – he knew how to hide, how to avoid people, how not to be bothered, but inevitably, after weeks of spending most of his lunchtimes out in the shrubbery by the fire exit, he had to find Percy and ask for his notes.

While Newt was copying down three beautifully handwritten pages of A4 (for a punk, Percy’s handwriting was quite exquisite), Percy sat by him, sucking on the collection of hardboiled sweets that filled the food bowl in the common room (he’d heard whispers that it was Jacob who kept it full, keeping all of his year well-fed). “Newt,” he said, and the sound of his voice made Newt stop, his pen coming off in a straight line that accidentally cut through some of his words. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” he replied in what was almost a whisper.

“You’ve got friends, you know. You could try talking to them. Hell, some of them might have been through nasty breakups too.” Newt wasn’t sure that was the right choice of words, but he let it slide. Percy picked up Newt’s pen and continued copying for him. “Have you been for a coffee lately?”

“No,” Newt replied, which was a lie, because his mother had come up to his bedroom while he was crying, ruffled his hair, and taken him out for cake, but in fairness, he _had_ been focusing more on the cake than the two mochas he’d downed.

“I’ll take you out for one after school,” said Percy, and while Newt wanted to object, he had a feeling it would’ve been pointless, and he was yearning for some kind of relief from the aching in his bones, in his soul. He hated moping, but was entirely predisposed to it. He just was the type of person to not talk for too long.

He let Percy keep writing for him until lunch began, where he packed his things in his bag, the common room beginning to flood with other students, but they stayed where they were: Newt had a packed lunch (two cheese sandwiches, a carton of orange juice, a Creme Egg sent over by Theo, who was attending the University of the Arts in London and had become Newt’s supplier of British food) and Percy was charming enough to be able to wheedle food from almost everybody else in the room, including Jacob, who couldn’t deal with his not having lunch and gave him a whole ham sandwich before sitting back down. Newt didn’t appear to have moved in the time Percy had gotten lunch, but somehow he had produced his iPod from his bag and was sitting listening to something while chewing endlessly on a slab of cheddar. “You a vegetarian?”

Newt looked up, pulling out an earphone. “Yes. I have no problem with other people eating meat, but I feel quite queasy about eating it myself. I find it hard to feed Douglas live insects.”

Percy paused. “Douglas.”

“Douglas. My bearded dragon.”

“You called your bearded dragon _Douglas_?”

Percy looked as if Newt had just tried to explain quantum physics to him, and Newt tried to understand the look, but he could see absolutely nothing wrong with either owning a bearded dragon or giving it the perfectly sensible name of Douglas. “It’s a good Scottish name. It means dark stream.”

Percy had to resort to simply shaking his head, wondering what went on in Newt’s mind. He chuckled. “You a vegan?”

“Oh, no. I disagree entirely with certain practices in areas such as dairy farming and think that the protection of the environment caused by veganism is a good thing, but it would be entirely inconvenient for friends and family.” Percy smiled; it was such a typically Newt thing to say, to look out for others, to place everyone before himself.

They had English together next; they were in the midst of studying _Henry IV, Part 1_. Percy sat at a desk with Newt, who was in the middle of making a poster, a black Sharpie between his teeth and a blue marker scratching away at the paper: _out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety_. His handwriting was surprisingly neat – not scripted, like Percy’s, but with round letters that were easy to read so that when he had to scribble things down, they wouldn’t be quite as incomprehensible. His poster-making abilities, however, left a lot to be desired: he sacrificed aesthetics for functionality, cramming in as much analysis as he could in multicoloured paragraphs.

“What do the colours mean?” asked Percy.

Newt set down the marker and pulled the Sharpie from his mouth. “It’s just to keep different parts of analysis separate.” He paused, taking a moment to add quotation marks. “And it’s more fun when it’s colourful.” He blustered a little as he smiled. Percy glanced down at his own poster, a mildly gothic-looking slab of illegible thematic analysis. Maybe it _was_ more fun.

They came out of English class together, Newt with a hand in his right pocket (for this one did not contain Pickett, so he didn’t have to worry about getting bitten for any reason) and walking along with that peculiar walk of his that didn’t look so much like a walk as a glorified stumble, Percy walking with the utmost confident, back rigidly straight to assure that he was heads above as many people as physically possible. Anyone who saw them might think they weren’t walking together, but just incidentally in step.

Percy had the pick of coffee shop, so he avoided the more eccentric ones that would appeal to Newt and took him to the coffee shop residing in their local bookstore, causing Newt to spend thirty minutes gushing over his love of certain books before buying a new edition of _Gone With The Wind_. He sat down with Percy by the window, a blue and purple stained glass circle that looked like it might’ve either been a flower or abstract art; Percy had sat down much earlier after Newt had almost begun to cry over a copy of _The Catcher in the Rye_ , entirely unsure that he was capable of dealing with a book nerd in as deep as Newt, and had bought him a latte.

“Fan of the book?” Percy asked, leafing through the pages. Newt nodded. “You know, at my drama club – the one on the weekends – we’re working on revisiting famous scenes from movies. We were going to do like tears in rain – you know, Blade Runner – but we were looking for another one since another group were doing it too...”

“Oh, that would be good!” Newt said enthusiastically, nodding his head. “I could see you as Rhett. ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.’” He smiled into the foamy pool of his coffee and took a sip. “Thank you for taking me out. I really appreciate your efforts, and I know that I’ve been unreachable, and I’m sorry.”

Percy shrugged. “Well, you’d just watched your boyfriend go through the shitter. I’d be surprised if you were okay. And I know you’ve just got your mom and your animals, so I’m sure you could use some variation.”

“Still.” Newt took back his copy of the book and placed it in his bag, his beloved Fjallraven, between his jotter pad of catch-up notes and David Copperfield-thick Math textbook. “You’re making something good out of what is quite a horrible situation.”

“I know you liked Abernathy. Even if I didn’t.” Percy set his espresso back on the table. “And we _have_ known each other for what – four years? Figure I should make up for four years of being a fuckface.”

“I rather disagree with your self-evaluation – it’s a little critical. But again. Thank you.”

Percy stirred his coffee aimlessly. “So, you ready for production next weekend?”

“Oh, absolutely. I’m quite excited, actually. I think it’s going to go very well.” Newt was so animated when he spoke about his passions, Percy thought – he would light up entirely, a look of sheer wonder across his features, and he would look like the entire world had settled into place and that everything was perfect. He often tuned out when Newt spoke at length, because their interests didn’t always line up, but just watching Newt, his fiery enthusiasm – that was enough for him. He could set a match to any conversation; burst idle trivialities into a flashover.

Newt eventually cottoned on to the lack of attention and smiled bashfully, cutting through Percy’s haze. “Say, Percy. Would you like to come over and watch _Gone With The Wind_ with me sometime?”

Percy grinned, feeling like he’d won the lottery. “I would love to.”

They agreed that, after the performance on Friday night, Percy would stay over with Newt, they would watch the movie, and they would spend the next day together before returning to school for the Saturday performance. Percy didn’t get to speak to Newt most of Friday: he was decked-out in traditional backstage all-black, the only colour the gleam of his brown boots, and he was coming back and forth, moving props, adjusting parts of the set, taking briefings from the older members of the crew, though when Percy walked past to go to the toilet, he caught Newt out of the corner of his eye, instructing Abernathy on something, Pickett perched among his ginger locks, which, though Percy hadn’t particularly noticed, were actually quite long, sitting on his shoulders. He remembered Newt mentioning at some point in their first year together that cutting his hair was rather an afterthought in his life, and to get him to do so was exceedingly difficult. What had once been a very overgrown fringe was now tucked behind his ear, and he permanently looked mildly dishevelled, but it gave him that kind of Newt-ish charm of too-short trousers and ill-fitting waistcoats.

He saw Newt again backstage, when Percy’s hair was being brushed and styled by the makeup lady; Newt was in the process of spraying a final coat of gloss over a pair of painted boots. Abernathy walked up to him and exchanged words with him; Newt chuckled, pausing, stock still as Abernathy tucked some of his hair behind his ear, but to Percy’s relief, he took a bashful step back and returned to work.

Abernathy was behind the set doing the running, so Newt clambered into one of the back row seats beside Sera, who gave him a courteous smile. He passed her a chocolate and settled in to his seat, half-watching the play (he’d read the script so many times that he almost felt numb), actors moving back and forth; he ignored their missed or fluffed lines, but at some point during the second act, Percy stepped on the stage.

Newt tried his best not to think about how stunning he was. He often tried this: it was quite easy, because very often Percy would be wearing bondage trousers, and bondage trousers (in Newt’s eyes) were ridiculous; if not bondage trousers, he oft resorted to entirely tartan suits reminiscent of Vivienne Westwood, which were also a little bizarre, but he was down on stage and he was wearing a black suit, his hair a little wild and slightly curled, and he was beautiful. It was easy to lose sight of his dark and handsome features when they were contorted in an anarchist rant; it was hard to forget their presence when he was speaking of matters of the heart.

The interval came too soon and Newt let himself stay backstage, ignoring the group gathering of outpourings of hope and affectations to sit in the bathroom and chew his nails down to the quick. Abernathy had noticed Newt’s absence, as had Percy, but while Percy was hounded by hair, makeup, and costume to change and top-up with another few layers of powder and hairspray, Abernathy snuck out unnoticed, pushing open the door to the bathroom and looking down at Newt, who was leaning against the wall by the sinks.

“Hey, Newt,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing much,” Newt replied, sinking down onto the floor. “I’m just a bit tired.”

“Tell me about it,” Abernathy ventured, taking a seat next to Newt, wary to keep a distance between their legs so that he didn’t feel like he was encroaching.

“I don’t think you’ll want to hear this,” Newt murmured, resting his head on his knee, hair cascading down and obscuring his features in a soft brown haze.

“Come on. It’s okay to tell me. I won’t be mad.”

Newt sighed, and he sucked a little on his bottom lip. “I really like Percy. Always have, to be perfectly honest. And I’m not entirely sure how to deal with it.” With Abernathy, he had not had such difficulties: he had been rather politely asked out, and his feelings hadn’t run so wild. He wanted to sip tea with Abernathy and run circles over his palms and kiss his forehead. He wanted Percy to tug at his hair and explore every crevice of him and make him feel like he was touching the horizon, which was a desire that caused him mild concern for his own welfare (both physical and mental), and he had spent at least an hour on the phone to Theo asking if this was normal, much to his brother’s vexation (“these thoughts happen to most people, even if you don’t sometimes expect them to or seem particularly like the kind of person who these thoughts should happen to”).

Abernathy minded a little bit, but also he didn’t. He wanted the best for Newt. “Well, you should just tell him, shouldn’t you?”

“It would be a little awkward if he didn’t return the feeling.”

“It’s surely going to be awkward if you feel this strongly but don’t tell him, isn’t it?” Abernathy tried to peer beneath the picture frame of hair. “Um, do you have earphones?” Newt nods, pulling his iPod from his pocket and disentangling a pair of white earbuds, attaching them to Abernathy’s proffered phone and placing one bud in his ear, Abernathy mirroring the movement. He was playing Elvis Presley’s _Can’t Help Falling in Love_ , and while Newt found himself entirely unsurprised that Abernathy listened to Elvis (he was an old soul), the song twisted his gut, and he wound his fingers in with Abernathy’s and squeezed tightly, as if he were trying to express his feelings through pressure alone; Abernathy simply rested his head against Newt’s and smiled, mostly to himself, pleased that he could provide some sort of _something_ for him.

They unscrambled when the song was over, knowing the interval wouldn’t continue much longer; Newt felt peculiar, as if he had just been a part of a deeply intimate experience, and from the way Abernathy was tugging his black shirt down, he felt the same. Newt wrapped his earphones back around his iPod, keeping his back to Abernathy so he didn’t have to see the expression he was going to cause. “James?” Abernathy made a little noise. “Thank you.”

“No bother.” Abernathy held the door open for Newt; he held a perfect poker face, not a single shred of the pain hearing Newt use his name caused him let through, though despite the pain, it made him happy. He liked knowing that there was someone there who understood him and who would help him when he needed it; for all the help Abernathy often doled out, he received very little in response. “Let’s go. The show must go on.”

Sera was waiting and she smiled at Newt as he sat down. He wondered briefly if she could somehow see into his head, but he dismissed the thought and took his seat.

“Are you enjoying the play?” she asked. “You’ve done a good job for a first production.”

“You can hardly credit me. Everybody’s done fantastically well,” Newt replied. Sera laughed.

“Percy always said you were modest.”

The act following the interval (Newt was not keeping count) was particularly eventful, and one in which Percy’s character did not survive, which thoroughly disheartened Newt, though his performance was, as ever, excellent. He had the kind of careful control of expression perfect for screen acting, but also the ability to look entirely natural on stage and entirely at home in the body of a character whose mannerisms were entirely different from his. In the moments before his character closed his eyes last, they flickered to Newt and held his trembling gaze; he had to excuse himself outside to pull himself together. The air was cool and he lifted his phone to his ear, already dialling through to England.

“If this isn’t important, Newt, I swear to Merlin...”

“Theseus, what was that you always said about teen angst?”

“It’s entirely necessary for emotional development. Is this about that boy you like, that Percival? What’s going on? Has he done something?” Theo paused. “Heaven forbid, have _you_ done something?”

“No, but he’s staying over tonight and I – I don’t know what to do. I feel strongly for him. But I still miss Abernathy. And I’m not sure I’m ready for anything yet. Abernathy was like a puppy; Percy is a bloodhound.”

“Remember what he looked like with that fringe. The ‘emo hair’, was it called? Paracelsus, it was awful.”

“Quite.” Newt paused, watching actor after actor file off stage; the play was nearing its end. He chewed on his thumbnail, which was almost nonexistent for his nerves. “Theo? You don’t mind that I like men, do you? Really?”

“Honestly, Newt, I couldn’t care less what sex or gender your attractions fell to. I only care that you’re happy, not who you like – unless they make you unhappy, I suppose. You’re my brother and I love you and nothing is going to change that.” Theo paused for a yawn. “And if you get married, I want an invite.”

Newt rolled his eyes. “As if I’m going to get married to Percy.”

“I don’t know what your relationship’s like, Newt. Now go on. Enjoy your night. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Unless you want to.”

Newt took a deep breath and hung up, pushing open the door and stepping through into the backstage area, where Percy was talking to the set designer, whose name Newt could never remember, but he peeled away from her immediately for him. “Hey,” he said. “Good job out there.”

“Thank you,” said Newt. “You too.” And his fears, his anxieties and nerves and the shaking of his hand where he had held Abernathy’s in the bathroom, were dispelled as if they had never been there, because Newt just fell into the way he always was with Percy, the rhythm of their routine so easy for him.

They left as soon as they could, though Percy was appropriately badgered and showered with compliments for his ‘beautiful performance’, and the makeup artist, a pleasant but very short young lady, grabbed his sleeve and told him at least three times to _wash his damn face_ and _shave, for heaven’s sake!_. He groaned as they exited out of the building and began walking along the streets, aglow with fluorescence and people moving to and fro from shows and clubs. “Honestly, do I _have_ to be grabbed by _everyone_ to be told I did well?”

“Don’t lie; you like the attention,” Newt teased. Percy snorted.

“You know me too well.”

Percy had never been in Newt’s house before: it was absolutely choc-a-block with _things_ – he almost kicked over a pile of dusty old books sitting on the staircase, and there were numerous cages for different animals strewn across the floor, which he did his best to avoid as he tiptoed up Newt’s carpeted stairs. The smell of cooking wafted up from the kitchen, and it was a smell that Percy had never smelled before: it reminded Newt of home, back in the UK, and it reminded him of coming in from school as a child.

Newt leaned on the banister of the stairs, waving a hand at Percy to keep climbing, so he did, emerging into a small square section of floor surrounded on three sides by doors and the other by the stairs. “Mum!” Newt yelled down the stairs. “I’m home! I brought Percy with me!”

“Dinner will be ready in half an hour!” she called back, and this satisfied Newt, who hurried up the stairs and stepped into the room right ahead of Percy (who had not noticed that there was a small plaque on it with ‘NEWTON’ inscribed). Newt’s room was something to behold: there was almost no space whatsoever to move, the ceiling hung with birdcages and the floor with cages for two remarkably obese guinea pigs and a very large cage for a large family of degus. His bed was small, a single crammed in the corner, and while it was made, it was made messily, the duvet strewn across the mattress with little care for neatness, and he had several spare pairs of boots pushed up against the foot of the bed, next to several piles of books that didn’t fit in any of his numerous full bookcases, which were decorated with postcards and Funko figures, none of which Percy recognised, and they were decorated so extensively that he could barely see any of the book titles. The only clean part of Newt’s room was barely clean anyway: he had a whole corner of the room dedicated to his music, with a stereo for the speakers dotted around the room and a record player. A sizeable collection of vinyl records rested up against the turntable, but what _was_ impressive were his CDs: not only were there at least three cases specifically designed for CDs and were entirely packed, with some CDs slotted horizontally on top for lack of space, but there was a pile of CDs on the floor, which had once been neatly stacked but had been rifled through too many times and had fallen into a small volcano-like structure centering on _Hunky Dory_.

Newt’s television was a particularly small flatscreen in the corner by his record collection, rested atop a chest of drawers that was, surprisingly enough, not overflowing. Above it was a large poster for Francis Ford Coppola’s _The Outsiders_ ; Newt’s walls were mostly covered, where there was actually room to cover them, with newspaper and magazine cutouts, but he did have several posters up: _Rushmore_ , _Napoleon Dynamite_ , _Gone With The Wind_. When Percy looked directly up, there were more: _Monsters University_ , _Moonrise Kingdom_ , _The Perks of Being a Wallflower_. He didn’t know what most of the posters were actually of (movies, it seemed), and Newt’s taste in movies seemed as eclectic as his taste in music. While Percy admired Newt’s explosion of a room, Newt himself was placing a record on the turntable.

“This is quite the place you’ve got,” Percy said, pausing to see if he could tell which sleeve was tucked against Newt’s chest, but he couldn’t. “What are you listening to?”

“The Bohicas,” Newt replied. “Their music always reminds me of you.” He paused to look over his shoulder. “Does – does anything remind you of me?” He looked curious.

“A lot of things. But when I see animals – usually dogs, really – they always remind me of you. I always think about how happy you would be to see them.”

Newt swallowed.

Percy could see that something was going on – Newt was not facing him, instead facing the turntable, the grips of his fingers white as ash. His hair was falling in his face now, and his shoulders were hunched, and despite the homeliness of Newt’s room, somehow the music did not feel as if it belonged: it was at odds with him; he was fighting something, himself. It was easy to tell sometimes with Newt, though at other times Percy found that it seemed as if Newt was always in some kind of pain.

“Newt,” Percy said quietly.

“Yes,” Newt murmured.

“Are you alright?”

“Quite. Quite alright.”

“Newt.”

“Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“You’re reading me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying not to. But you look like you’re in pain.” Percy took a step forward. “It’s that British stoicism, isn’t it? You downright _refuse_ to be sad. You bottle it in like pain is something bad. You know that’s okay to hurt, don’t you? No matter where that hurt is from. Whether it’s from something that seems like it should be trivial, or something that seems like the end of the world, or wherever on that spectrum.”

Newt sunk to his knees on the floor. Percy was not sure if he was allowed to do this, but he sunk with him and put his arms around Newt, around his skinny chest, and he pulled Newt’s hands from his face and wiped his tears, his hot tears. “It never hurts until I’m here. Because then I remember how I’m alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Percy replied, brushing his fingers through Newt’s hair, combing out the knots. “You have so many people, Newt. Abernathy. Sera. Tina. Jacob. Everyone in our year would happily talk to you.” He rested his chin on the top of Newt’s head. “If you talked to them. It’s not a fucking crime to have feelings, Newt. It’s not a fucking crime to be sad.”

Newt was quiet for a long time; he unfurled himself from Percy and lay on his back on the floor, beneath the cage of his songbirds and beside his guinea pig Frank, who came up for an experimental sniff at his ear. Percy sat next to him, legs crossed, watching the tears spill down the sides of Newt’s face, though his face had gone quite still and he had, for some part, composed himself. “I miss Abernathy and I worry about him all the time and I can’t even be in a room with him without doing something to him, and it’s not fair.” He let out a staggered, shaking breath. “And I miss Theseus. It’s lonely out here, with just me and mum. But I don’t think I’ve ever said it.”

“You’re saying it now,” said Percy.

Neither of them moved until Newt’s mother called him down for dinner, at which point he sprung to his feet like a Jack-in-the-box, but Percy caught his hand and drew him into a tight hug. “Don’t repress it,” he said into Newt’s ear, which seemed as painted with freckles as the rest of him. “It doesn’t do anyone any good, least of all you.”

Dinner seemed to revitalise Newt, though Percy supposed that cheer was inevitable from Mrs Scamander’s cooking – the meal was piping hot, calorific (how was Newt so _skinny_ when he was so well fed?), and tasted like everything right with the world, and just when he thought the roast lamb was enough to make him burst, he had a plate of sticky toffee pudding placed in front of him and, for politeness, ate as much as he could. He was used to seeing Newt leave behind half of his lunch, but he wolfed down dinner and talked happily to his mother as if he hadn’t just been in tears and crying for Britain. It was purely magical.

Newt was better when he went back up to his bedroom, and it made Percy happy to see him back to himself: his eyes were still tinged with melancholy, but he was calmer, and he could smile again. The Bohicas had come to an end and he placed the record back in its sleeve, fetching his DVD copy of _Gone With The Wind_ from his rows of DVD cases. He lay on his bed (Percy insisted) while Percy lay on the floor.

“I warn you,” said Newt. “It’s four hours long.”

“I don’t mind,” said Percy. “I want to see it.”

Newt fell asleep almost straight away, dozing, his pale eyelashes fluttering now and then. Percy enjoyed the movie, though occasionally he shifted to text someone, or check his social media accounts, and he watched Newt wake up just in time for the famous sequence; he tried not to watch the movement of Newt’s expression, but he found himself entirely entranced by the way Newt sat, his lips mirroring the words on screen, following them along – and then, without much notice, he was asleep again. He was beautiful when he slept: the troubles drained from his face, and he seemed perfectly content, the way Percy knew him best, and he had an expression of permanent amusement in his sleep, much like the one he had so often displayed to Percy: in their first days together, when he had become a punk and started wearing interesting trousers and ripped shirts, when he had performed his first soliloquy to Newt (a particularly vulgar one). It showed all the shades of him. Percy loved them all.


	4. i would like to move in just a little bit closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Newt royally embarrasses himself in front of Percy, but that's okay, because Percy embarrasses himself right back.

Percy woke at around ten the next morning; Newt was already up, eating toast and watching something on his laptop with earphones in. He smiled down at Percy. “Good morning,” he said, offering out his plate. “I don’t really fancy this toast.”

“Why’d you get it?”

“I made the mistake of going downstairs for a cup of coffee.”

Percy got up and sat next to Newt, taking the toast. “What are we going to do today?”

“I don’t know,” Newt replied. “Hadn’t thought about that.”

They went for a cake in the same café that Mrs Scamander had taken Newt to get over Abernathy (which had, of course, not worked), and went for a long walk, whereupon Percy had come up with the idea that Newt could help him practice for his drama group performance, considering Newt was clearly a well-practiced master of _Gone With The Wind_. Newt did his best to clear out a space for the two of them to stand in his room where they wouldn’t have to worry about harming an animal or treading on any of Newt’s favourite CDs (those though were, apparently, placed safely away).

“Okay,” said Newt. “You’re Scarlett, I’m Rhett, right?” Percy nodded. “Hit me.”

His acting, as ever, was beautiful. It was almost hard to deliver lines back to his intensity, the way he almost floored himself with Scarlett’s pain, the depth of the emotions that flickered behind his irises, his strength. Newt thought he might cry, despite having seen the film before, despite being quite enchanted by Vivien Leigh, though he cried at almost every movie, and he was swept up, swept away, like a feather in the wind.

“If you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?”

“Frankly, my dear, I...” Newt paused. His eyes were tumultuous, the ocean in a storm. He bit his lip. “I do. I do give a damn. I give so many damns that sometimes I can’t sleep at night because – because I love you. Because you mean a lot to me. Because you’ve been here, every hour of every day to help me when I needed it. I – I give a damn. I give such a damn. I love you.” He was trembling, his bottom lip parted from the top, everything about his expression so revealing, as if he were standing entirely naked, his soul on show. He was looking at the floor and he was crying and he was beautiful and he was _teeming_. “I’m so sorry. I’ve tried to hide this, I’ve tried to ignore this, I thought – I just couldn’t accept it – and Abernathy, he was there and I cared for him too – but I love you and I always have.”

Percy had gone entirely still on the stage, staring back, utterly helpless to the slackness of his own jaw. He had poured his very own heart and soul into his performance – the way he had watched Newt with Abernathy (Abernathy!) instead of him, the way his arm around Newt’s shoulder had been so hopeless, useless, and he had been expecting nothing. He had not been expecting a heart pressed back against his very own, sore and true and open with years’ worth of feeling, years and years of loving and yearning and after-school coffee shop trips, the gentleness of Percy’s palms, the bump of their elbows, when they had been standing out on Newt’s front door and he had promised to hurt Abernathy if he ever did anything to slight him –

Percival Graves could not hold it in any longer, and swept his arms around Newt, swept him up off his feet and kissed his forehead, his nose, his cupid’s bow, his lips, all of Newt’s wonderfully freckled face, and Newt came right back at him, hugging him back, his mouth responsive, experienced, exploring, precious. “ _I wanted you. I wanted you desperately but I didn’t think you wanted me._ ”

“ _It seems we’ve been at cross purposes, doesn’t it?_ ” Newt smiled, resting his head against Percy’s.

“ _I only know that I love you._ ”

Newt gently let go of Percy, taking a few steps towards the window: his hair was entirely dishevelled, falling into his eyes, and his eyes were lit with joy, with engagement, with the bliss of a man who’d just let go of the weight of his world. “ _I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’ll never understand or forgive myself. And if a bullet gets me, so help me, I’ll laugh at myself for being an idiot. There’s one thing I do know... and that is that I love you, Scarlett. In spite of you and me and the whole silly world going to pieces around us, I love you. Because we’re alike. Bad lots, both of us. Selfish and shrewd. But able to look things in the eyes as we call them by their right names._ ”

“You act so beautifully, you know that?” Percy said, stepping forward to wrap his arms around Newt from behind and pressing a kiss to the skin behind his ear. He paused. “Is that what I think it is?”

“It might be.” Newt giggled at the feel of Percy prodding the ink. “If you think it’s a tattoo of a newt, then you’re right. I went to go see Theo last summer and one of his friends – I think his name was Gellert? – was a little strange and gave me that.” He gently detached himself to fetch a CD from his collection: Percy was rather impressed by the way he just moved without even looking, as if Newt had memorised the positioning of every single one of his hundreds of CDs to the point of being able to pick one out blindfolded (he probably could). As he moved, he was singing something gently; though Percy heard him sing very scarcely, it was always beautiful when he did.

“ _No, I don’t want no scrub; a scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me; hanging out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride, trying to holler at me..._ ” Percy mildly regretted listening to the lyrics, relieved by the introduction of a twanging guitar over the speakers, watching with surprise as Newt sunk to the floor and let out a groan.

“I’m sorry,” he said, peering over his shoulder, “did I just tell you I loved you while reciting _Gone With The Wind_ and crying?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, bugger.” He groaned again, the embarrassment in his face reflecting his inside, which felt like it wanted to cringe so hard he felt like he was going to fold up straight into the size of a five-pence coin. “Why didn’t you punch me in the face?”

“Because, much like I just fucking _told_ you, Newt, I like you. One does not punch the people he likes in the face. Unless they ask. And they’re in bed with me.” He brushed Newt’s hair away again to peer at the ink behind his ear. “Did that hurt?”

“Quite a bit. I wouldn’t rush back for another.”

“Think you’ll get any more – when you’re old enough, might I add?” Percy gave Newt a sharp jab in the shoulder at this remark, which caused his gentle laughter and for him to turn round as Percy tuned into what was playing; he recognised it, somewhere vaguely in the back of his mind: _you don’t give me love, you give me pale shelter..._

“Maybe,” said Newt, then quickly amended this: “Probably.”

“Didn’t peg you as a tattoo person.”

“I’m not. I just like art.”

Percy paused. “Tell me more about it. I refuse to sit down without knowing how someone managed to coerce you, of all people, into an underage tattoo. Of a newt.”

“Maybe later,” Newt replied softly, his tone suggesting that Percy should perhaps not push this one, so Percy took the opportunity to run his fingers through Newt’s hair: it was a little tangled, but it was just long enough to feel nice and it was possibly the softest hair he’d ever felt before, beautifully natural, a phantasmagorical wash of brilliant colours that shone in the light coming through the window. It even smelled nice: whatever was in Newt’s shampoo, it smelled good, like a fruit bowl crossed with a cup of coffee.

“Are you feeling better today?” he asked, giving Newt a final pat on the head before he moved to sit down on his bed, which had a surprisingly firm mattress that almost flung Percy straight off as penance for trying to bounce on it.

“Yeah,” said Newt, observing the change of music into _Woman in Chains_. For some reason, the song had always reminded him of Percy, who was neither a woman nor in chains. “Much better. Thanks to you.” He struggled to bring himself to look at Percy now, slightly worried that the thing inside of him that seemed to dictate his actions now instead of his rational mind would cause him to do something embarrassing again, but he forced himself to do it. The other boy was sitting flipping through one of Newt’s notebooks, his hair a catastrophic black mass diffused into some sort of afro by sleep and by the drama department’s styling. “You should probably have a shower. Before tonight. For the... the hair.”

“Or are you just trying to see my shirtless?” Percy snorted at the shade of tomato red Newt went, all the way to the tips of his hair, which he ruffled as he walked through to the bathroom. “Don’t worry. I know that your intentions are good. Unless you’re hiding some from me.”

“How could I do that?” Newt smiled, chewing on a fingernail, though both he and Percy knew very well that Newt kept secrets. He almost couldn’t keep himself from it.

They arrived an hour before the start of the production, and Newt waved goodbye to Percy almost immediately in order to chase up the departments and make sure that everything was in order, though he decided that, instead of watching the play, he would spend it in the backstage with everyone else, eating sweets and playing games out of sheer boredom. He was approached the second the actors had filed off by a girl he’d seen around plenty times before but whose name he never managed to remember: she was pretty, with flapper-style curly blonde hair and a smile that seemed to soothe all his nerves right away. And she was Tina’s sister, he knew that.

“Hey,” she said. “This might sound a little weird, but can I do your hair?” He nodded with a smile and sat down, letting the girl go to work and trying to avoid the fact that he could smell something burning behind him. “I’m Queenie. I’m not actually in the right year for this, but they asked if I could come along and help today.”

“I’m Newt,” he replied. “Glad to make your acquaintance and have you on board.”

“Aww, thanks, honey; you’re sweet!” She was brushing his hair now with a comb that tickled Newt’s scalp. “You know, you look real troubled at school, but you’ve got this big grin on you now. I’m glad you look happier. It suits you.” She paused. “I hope I’m not going too far – please tell me if I am – but you’ve been through a lot of really horrible experiences, haven’t you? Maybe not horrible from the outside, but for you.”

“I think they’re horrible only for me. They seem terribly trivial to everyone else.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t feel sad about them. Feeling sad is important, because without it, you’ll never enjoy how good it is to be happy.”

Percy was too busy being fussed over during the interval to speak to Newt, but the minute the play was over, he scooped Newt’s arm in his and guided him straight outside. It was night, and dark, and they wandered around for a while before finding a twenty-four-hour fast food place to kill time in. Newt ate his way through a significant amount of fries, his head rested against the window of the cubicle they were sitting in; Percy was running his fingers through Newt’s straightened hair, amused by it.

“The tattoo,” Newt said. “Do you still want to know the story?”

“If you want to tell it.”

“I was staying with Theseus in his flat, and this friend of his – Gellert – lived with him. Theo had to go out one night – I don’t remember what for – so it was just Gellert and I. He was very mischievous and had a very dubious moral code, but he was also very charming. You just couldn’t help but be drawn in by him.” Newt took a deep breath, eyes dark; Percy laid a hand on his arm.

“You don’t have to tell me this.”

“I want to. You deserve to know.” He ate another chip for good measure. “He knew I was gay – I think Theo told him; he was always trying to find ways to help me out because then and still now I just don’t know how to deal with these feelings – and he manipulated me. Slowly, over the evening. Everything he said sounded like gold and he was telling me I was beautiful and special and – and I believed him, and when he tattooed me, he knew he could do anything.”

“Newt. Jesus Christ.” Percy bit his lip: he wanted to ask Newt to stop, because he had a feeling he knew where this was going and he mostly definitely didn’t want to hear it, but he knew that he was the first person graced with the story. He knew that he was in charge of Newt’s emotional welfare, and he knew that he wanted Newt to be okay, so he had to let it out, even if it hurt. “Newt.”

Newt’s eyes were wet with tears, but he did little more to address them than leaning down to brush his face with the back of his hand for a brief moment. “It was above board. Everything. I said yes. Nothing he did, I was uncomfortable with. But it wasn’t what I wanted. He took things from me I didn’t want him to take.”

“Oh, fuck.” Percy pulled Newt in, rubbed his back until his hand was sore with fabric burn, ran his fingers through Newt’s ginger hair until he composed himself again. He felt as if he had less composure somehow than Newt, who was very still except when he moved to bury himself further into Percy.

“I wanted it,” Newt whispered, muffled by Percy’s chest, by his Sex Pistols T-shirt, which felt mildly inappropriate now. “I wanted it, I enjoyed it, and I have the cheek to feel bad about it.”

“He abused you, Newt. He manipulated you. You’re allowed to be upset by that, and by that piece of fucking human trash.” Percy squeezed him tighter. “Did he make you do anything – give him anything?”

“No. But he did steal one of my scarves. He wore it around the house on the day I left. I couldn’t bring myself to ask for it back.” Percy said nothing, for lack of words, though Newt felt as if he had been caught and mumbled a “he might’ve taken some money too”.

“Fuck, Newt, I... I didn’t know.”

“Nobody knows. He’s still living with Theo. But I don’t want Theo to know. He’ll feel responsible, and he’ll blame himself, but it’s not his fault.” They didn’t move for a long time, until a worker came up to ask if they wanted more fries. Percy said he did and placed an arm around Newt, drawing him in close, pressing languished kisses to his hair, wondering how any sort of God could let someone so good struggle in this way. He asked Newt if he should stay over another night. Newt said no, he should not, he should not waste his time looking after someone who was old enough to take care of himself, so of course Percy stayed anyway, hanging his head out the window while Newt sat flicking through the television channels, eventually settling on a talk show with a host that had an extremely grating voice. His tears had dried up a long time earlier, but he still felt an uncomfortable twinge every time his eyes fell upon his family photographs. One of them was of Theseus and his university friends, and he was smiling like an angel and looked so ecstatic with life that Newt had had to frame it and put it on his desk, even if it meant having Gellert there too. Percy pulled his head out the window and shut it, trying not to slam it as he settled down on Newt’s bed, following the other boy’s eyeline to the set of framed pictures he kept on his desk, neatly arranged so that he could see them all.

“You guys look like a really happy family,” he said, standing up to peer at the pictures: one was of Newt and Theseus when they were children, on the beach, beaming up at the camera from behind their ramshackle sandcastle; next to it, the two of them again but older, the picture smoother and better quality – Percy assumed it had been taken recently, because the Newt in the picture looked almost exactly like the Newt sitting on the floor next to him, give or take a few inches of hair, and he had his arm around Theseus, who was significantly taller than him with cropped curly blond hair; Percy went through a few more photos, most of which now included Mrs Scamander, before he finally came upon the last photo, on the far right of the desk, of Theo and his friends. He decided not to comment on this one.

“We’ve always been close,” Newt replied. “The three of us. It’s been hard since we moved here, without Theo.” He looked a little wistful. “I count the days until he comes home. On the calendar on the back of my door.”

Percy sat down next to Newt and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s gonna be alright, you know.”

He smiled. “I know. I’m just waiting.”

Sunday crawled along like a snail. Newt was preoccupied with studying for a test, only really moving to switch records or change CDs to whatever he felt like, and occasionally he asked Percy to check over his work. Percy sat by the TV, making his way through a surprisingly large bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and occasionally tossing one over to Newt, who ended his revision session with a slightly stained textbook and a pile of wrappers. Percy looked up, rather taken aback as he heard a song come on: he knew it, but he didn’t know the name of the song, just that it was a good one.

“Newt,” he said, “get up. We’re gonna dance.”

Newt spent a moment looking utterly bewildered by this command, but decided he had done stranger things and had been through enough that dancing with Percy to Dead or Alive would be better than nothing. He shoved his books off his lap and stood up. “Pray tell, how are we going to dance to Pete Burns?”

“Fucked if I know, Newt. Let’s just do something.” He took Newt’s hands, which were taut with cramp, and raised them, and he tried to move in a way that was rhythmic, though while Percy looked somewhat okay while dancing like a lunatic, Newt did not. He looked like Newt, clumsy and chaotic and utterly captivating, and when he moved he moved like he was shaking off a life’s worth of tension, or perhaps just a day’s worth of studying, and though he was a little jarred in the movement of his arms, he looked like he might’ve woken up from a dream that had lasted far too long.

“ _You spin me right round, baby, right round like a record baby, right round round round_...”

Their dance, stupid and wild and messy like everything in life, came to an end when Newt flopped down on his bed, somehow surviving the mattress’s attempt to fling him right back up in the air. Percy sat down as Newt clambered back up to feed his birds, who sang at him with desperation, hungry like lions. “Don’t they ever annoy you?”

“How could they?” Newt asked, watching his lovebirds peck at the seeds he had left them. “I like to hear them sing.”

Percy left some time after dinner, but before he left, he reminded Newt to call him if ever he were struggling. At this, Newt just smiled a little sadly, and ushered Percy away down the street before hurrying back up to his room, grabbing some shortbread on the way up. He shuffled through his unruly pile of CDs until he was holding _Are You Experienced_ and placing the CD into the sound system, grinning like a Cheshire cat as he dialled Theo.

“Hey, little brother,” said Theo, sounding as tired as ever. “Sorry – we’ll have to keep this short, I’ve got to study. How is it?”

“Oh, Theo,” Newt breathed. “I have so much to tell you.”

Percy received no calls the rest of the Sunday, and saw Newt the next day, sitting with Queenie, who was tying his hair up for him, half of it in a ponytail and the other framing his face, though he barely had enough time to wave before the bell rang for first period, and he couldn’t find Newt at all until the end of the day, when he hurried up to Percy on the way home, his hair falling out of Queenie’s ponytail and making him look as if he had been hit at some part of the day by a localised tornado.

“What are you so happy about?” Percy asked.

“I can’t tell you yet,” said Newt, “but you’ll like it.”

That night, Percy received no phone calls.

The next night, at around two in the morning, he was started by the sound of his phone going off and tried to muffle it to avoid waking his parents (though they never cared what he was up to), answering as quickly as possible, dunking himself beneath the duvet so his voice didn’t carry so loud. “Newt? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Oh dear, I wasn’t expecting you to pick up.”

“I’m devoted.”

“So I see.”

“Are you okay?”

“I feel like there’s a big hole in me and that it’s sucking everything in so that I’m just an empty shell.”

“Okay, I’m coming over.”

Newt tried to object, but his trying failed when, not more than ten minutes later, Percy was at his door, wearing a ripped-up white T-shirt tucked into a loose pair of check trousers, his hair pushed back only with his hand so that it kept falling into his face. Newt made him a cup of tea and ate biscuits from the jar on top of the cupboard, staring vacantly into the kitchen table, occasionally started back into reality when Percy moved.

“What’s happening to me, Percy?” Newt asked, looking up at the ceiling, the exposed lightbulb stinging his eyes.

“You’re getting better,” Percy replied, placing a hand on Newt’s shoulder, which was surprisingly cold, so he replaced his hand with his coat, draping it around the boy.

“Is this better?”

“It will be. You’ve got to face your issues before they go away. You can’t just let them simmer for the rest of your life.”

Mrs Scamander chose that moment to wander into the kitchen in her purple silk pajamas, looking between the two boys. “Newton?” she asked, taking a seat at the opposite end of the table. “What’s going on?”

Percy took Newt’s hand. “You want me to explain?” He nodded, and Percy turned to Mrs Scamander, whose brows were knitted in a look of utter concern. “Everything?” Newt shook his head. Percy sighed, but squeezed his hand and looked up. “Well, this is going to be a long story, so buckle up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more I work on this, the more embarrassed I feel by it, ha ha! Well, I hope someone's enjoying it, anyway. I've worked hard on this.


	5. where'd you wanna go, calamity's child?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy invites Newt out with friends; plenty of friends argue, but it feels so normal.

The next week, while Percy was eating lunch with Sera in the canteen (he absolutely _hated_ the canteen: it stank, the food was awful, and everybody who ate there was either an annoying little kid or a redneck), Abernathy came up to him, trying to stand up as tall as possible, looking entirely out of place among the stained floors in his pristinely pressed outfit, his eyes flicking back and forth.

“Um, Percival, I wanted to...”

“Sit down.” Percy pulled out the chair to his left and beckoned Abernathy to sit; he obliged, rigidly, his hands laid on his knees. He looked like he might implode with nerves.

“I wanted to ask about Newt. He hasn’t been in, and he has a project due for shop class, and it’s really important...”

“He’s fine. He’s just taking a well-deserved break. He’s been in to speak to some of the teachers about class, but he won’t be back in for a while. However long he needs.”

“Is he okay? He seemed a little funny last time I saw him.”

“He’s not okay, but he’s getting better. Sera and Queenie and I are going to see him tomorrow; do you want to come?”

“Oh, good gravy, would he be okay with that?” Abernathy dug his fingernails, not clipped short but all of uniform length, into his knee and winced at his own stupidity.

“The question isn’t if _he’s_ okay with it, it’s if _you_ are,” Sera interjected, looking pointedly at Abernathy with such a glare that he felt like he wanted to disappear into the plastic chair, never to return.

“I want to help him,” said Abernathy, with a lot more force than he was expecting. Percy smiled.

“Don’t we all?”

Newt was in his bedroom when they all came over, curled up reading his mildly destroyed copy of _Eleanor and Park_ , his _Best of Bowie_ CD blaring _Diamond Dogs_. He looked up with surprise as they queued into his room, barely all fitting for the cages on the floor and for the presence of Cat Stevens, who was making it notoriously difficult to move an inch. He looked like he hadn’t moved in several days.

“Newt fucking Scamander, get off your ass and come for a coffee with us or so help me God, I’ll drag you out,” Percy demanded, and just as Newt pulled himself to his feet and dusted down his jeans, the track changed to _Rebel Rebel_ , and, staring in the face of a man who was wearing a tartan blazer and ripped jeans, he burst into spontaneous laughter and flung his arms around Percy.

“Thank you for coming,” he said as he pulled back to grab his coat, nodding at Abernathy, who blushed and looked away, wishing he were invisible, and then at Sera and Queenie, though only one of the two nodded back.

“Oh, Newt, I brought you a present!” Queenie said cheerily, handing him an old pair of hair straighteners and heat protection spray. “Just in case you want to do something with your hair every now and then. You looked real cute.”

“Thank you,” he said, shuffling out, Cat Stevens only moving for him, deciding to shove in the way of Percy’s feet indignantly. Newt paused to turn his head. “Come on, Stevens. Behave.” The cat yowled, but eventually moved out of the way so the group could step outside. Newt was looking better than Percy had seen him, his eyes twinkling with something that almost resembled joy, as if he were coming to terms with himself. It was a sight that was almost astronomical, like watching the stars, or a sunrise. Percy reached over to take his hand.

“So,” he said, “where are we going, little salamander?”

“Wherever you want to go, big lark.”

They ended up in the peculiar café that Newt had taken Abernathy to, the ginger barista raising an eyebrow at the volume of people who appeared to be with Newt, a usual loner.

“Gotten a harem since the last time?” he asked. Newt snorted.

“As if. I’ll have an apple pie coffee today.”

“Changing it up! Good for you. I always knew you were something special.” He glanced over to the line behind Newt: Abernathy still looked as shell-shocked as he had the first time he’d come in, Percy looked around with no more interest than if he were in a Starbucks, Sera was examining a small figure of a London bus on the desk, and Queenie was beaming with joy as she peered into the aquarium, decorated with candy canes and a large replica of Gary the snail; she didn’t even know where to look first in the chaotic café. “Any other orders here, folks? Can’t gawk all day, you know.”

Abernathy eventually settled on a Vader’s Dark Side Roast, while Sera played safe with a chocolate orange hot chocolate (the barista spiced it up a little, disappointed by her order), Percy went for a Mexican hot chocolate, and Queenie’s smile almost melted the barista, who was okay with her just ordering a raspberry hot chocolate.

“You’re not from here, are you?” she asked him as everyone else filed away to a set of garish striped sofas.

“Born and raised in England, hour or two on the train away from London. Until now. Thought I’d try out the Big Apple, see if I could get business going. I reckon the Americans think I’m too weird, though.”

“Well, I like it here! It’s really original. And very British.”

Newt sat next to Percy, though tried not to sit _too_ close, because Abernathy, as ever, looked like he was being held up by strings like a marionette. Sera sat poker straight, but unlike Abernathy, she owned it, looking relaxed about it, her eyes flicking around the room with hidden curiosity. “How are you, Newt?” she asked, trying to avoid watching Queenie, who had now rested her elbow on the countertop.

“I’m feeling a lot better, actually,” he said, looking at Percy and resisting the urge to hold his hand (his hand was very soft, after all). “I have... taken the time at home to revisit certain books, and certain films, and I think they’ve helped me greatly.” (He chose this moment not to admit that, upon his reread and rewatch of _The Perks of Being a Wallflower_ , he had had to invite Percy over to hold him because he had been in floods of tears and they wouldn’t stop and he had wetted Percy’s collarbone, but Percy had been entirely alright with it, because to see Newt cry meant that Newt was no longer hiding himself from himself.) “And I may have made some mixtapes.”

“Mixtapes?” Abernathy looked confused. “What’s that?”

Percy groaned. “Fucking hell, Abernathy, what do you mean _what’s a mixtape_? Were you born without a brain, or did it just shrink in puberty?”

“Percy,” Sera warned, which was reaffirmed by Newt shouldering him. She turned to Abernathy: while Percy had absolutely no patience for him, she could see that, despite his initial clumsiness and tightness, he was a valuable asset, responsible and hardworking. And she felt for him sometimes, when she saw him cast half-awed glances at Newt, or when he would sit on his own at the back of a class or alone at lunch. “A mixtape is a music compilation in a very specific order, on a cassette tape. I’m assuming you used cassette tape, Scamander?”

“It’s not a mixtape if it’s on a CD,” he said brightly.

“Pray tell,” she asked, “what did you put on the cassettes?”

“Oh, Christ,” Percy groaned. “Don’t start Newt on music.”

He pulled one of his mixtapes out of his pocket ( _typical_ , thought Percy, _he just fucking carries them around with him, like they’re going to be of any use just sitting in his pockets_ ) and handed it over. The tracks were neatly handwritten in.

  1. _Heaven Is A Place On Earth – Belinda Carlisle_
  2. _You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) – Dead or Alive_
  3. _Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac_
  4. _Angel of Small Death & The Codeine Scene – Hozier _
  5. _All the Young Dudes – David Bowie_
  6. _You Really Got Me – The Kinks_
  7. _A-Punk – Vampire Weekend_
  8. _Dreams – Beck_
  9. _Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra) – The Vaccines_
  10. _Where You At – The Bohicas_
  11. _Two Fingers – Jake Bugg_



“Your taste in music is rather peculiar,” she said, handing it back. “But that’s a mixtape I would like to listen to.” Percy took it for several moments, squinting at the tracklist, smirking; he nudged Newt and asked if he could borrow it, to which the other boy went red but nodded anyway, unable to keep the tug at his lips.

“Well, actually, I’ve been meaning to tell someone about this,” he said, leaning forward. “Before I took time off, I spoke to the school, and I’ve been able to arrange a dance in a few weeks’ time, and the theme is the 80s – of course, overlap into the 70s is fine by me – and I’m in charge of the entire thing. So I was hoping to enlist your help.”

Sera smirked. “Now that _is_ a plan. I like this. What do you think, Abernathy?”

“I think it’s a great idea!” he said enthusiastically, and then realised that perhaps he had been too excited and sat down again, coughing gently into his hand. “Where’s Queenie? She’d love this.”

“Flirting with the barista. Which is also why we don’t have our coffees.”

“Queenie!” Percy called. She turned around, giggled, and pecked the barista’s cheek (he looked elated at this, which was unsurprising) before hurrying over to the chairs, taking a seat in a wooden vintage armchair. “Something for you, Queenie. He’s hosting an 80s – or 70s, who really gives a fuck? – dance at school.”

Her face looked like the sun: beaming out from behind her eyes and through her little lips, and she clapped her hands together with a short giggle of joy. “Oh, you betcha I’ll help you out with that, Newt! You just leave it to me. I will sort it _all_ out.”

“Except the music,” Percy pointed out. “Newt has that covered. He is a slut for 80s music.”

“What did we say about misogynistic language, Percy?” Sera asked, drumming her fingers against the arm of the sofa. Abernathy scooted further away from her, and received a sympathetic smile from Newt for this.

“ _I_ said fuck off,” Percy replied.

They were saved by the arrival of their speedy barista, who gave Queenie the flirtatious wink to end all flirtatious winks, and set their tray (today featuring a very large Aladdin Sane lightning bolt) down. “Drinks, ladies and one gentleman and one punk and Newt!” He distributed them with perfect memory, trying hard to suppress his smirk as he handed Sera her hot chocolate. “Please enjoy.”

Queenie sat down newt to Newt, taking a sniff of his coffee. “That smells _good_ ,” she said, then, “so, I was thinking, we could probably decorate the hall with posters and it would be cool if we had banners, I think...”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he said enthusiastically. “If you want to take charge of organising it on the looks front, I’ll leave it up to you.”

She squealed. “This is going to be amazing!” She pulled out her phone, a slim iPhone with a case filled with pink glitter that shone under even the slightest amount of light. “Here, you can have my number, and you text me what songs you’re thinking of, so we can coordinate everything...”

Percy tuned out of their conversation, disinterested (he would likely only be called in to do any heavy lifting or standing on ladders, because nobody else wanted to do anything that involved hard work or heights), and turned to Sera, whose face had changed a little after taking a sip of her hot chocolate. He raised an eyebrow. “Is it that bad?”

“Spice,” she said, trying to contain the yell that was threatening to burst out of her, “he _spiced my hot chocolate_.” Suppressing her anger was made even worse by the fact that the speakers were now playing Whigfield’s _Saturday Night_ ; she swore the barista had something against her.

Percy snorted. “What did you expect in a shop like this, with a barista who looks like a bad caricature of disco fashion?” To be fair, the ginger was not particularly eccentrically dressed that day, with another variation on a psychedelic shirt tucked into a pair of black jeans with a stupidly large cowboy belt and worn cherry red Doc Martens with something written in Sharpie on either side that Percy couldn’t make out, but Percy had a feeling from the way the shop was decorated that he was wearing a toned-down outfit. He suited it, though. Something about the man looked as eccentric as his idea of furnishings. “You don’t accompany Newt without knowing that something weird might happen.”

“Brits,” she sighed, shaking her head.

“Don’t be xenophobic,” Percy said smugly, which earned him a glare so intense that Abernathy, who was not even looking at the two of them and had joined Newt and Queenie’s conversation, scooted along further until he was pressed up against the very end of the sofa, looking greener than usual. Queenie had gone into outfit detailing, and she patted Newt on the shoulder and told him that she was going to sort something out for him (“please don’t let it be too bright,” he pleaded), and then amended this to that she was going to sort out outfits for their entire group (plus Tina).

The rest of the afternoon somehow went down without Sera ripping out Percy’s throat, and before she left, Queenie neatly wrote down her number on a slip of paper and left it in the tip jar, as well as every cent of change she had in her pocket. They wandered along the streets in their natural formation: Newt and Abernathy and Queenie, still talking animatedly about their plans for the dance, then Sera and Percy, who were doing an excellent job at riling each other up in between comments about the group in front of him, though these comments were mostly Percy fawning over Newt, who was looking much better, and who had let Queenie tie up his hair again, and the way the escaped strands fell into his eyes was just _perfect_.

They spent some time wandering the streets before splitting up, Newt and Percy walking home together, Newt’s face etched with the kind of exhilaration he was used to, the relief of having enjoyed himself, of being with friends. “When do you think you’ll be back in school?” Percy asked on Newt’s doorstep.

“Soon,” said Newt. “At the start of next week, I think.” He put his arms around Percy and squeezed him tight, resting his head on Percy’s shoulder and burying it a little into his neck. “Thanks for bringing everyone out. And thank you for all the help. I really appreciate it.”

“Stop thanking me. I do it because I want to.”

“Is it okay if I give you something?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“Give me a second.” Newt scurried up to his bedroom, pushed some of his birdcages aside so gently that their residents barely even noticed they were being moved at all, and reached a hand into his hidden bookshelf, retrieving a book that was cracked up and down along the spine more than once and dog-eared in a few places. He tried not to destroy his books, but after a few goes in his bag, they started to look a little worse for wear, and he read them with such rapture that he couldn’t help but hold the book wide open. He hurried back down the stairs, almost tripping over Frank on his way. “Sorry!”

“Did you just apologise to your dog?” Percy asked as Newt arrived back on the doorstep. Newt frowned.

“I almost stepped on him. It was very rude.” He passed Percy over the book. “I want you to have this.” Percy looked down at it: _Solitaire_ , said the cover. Something else on the cover praised it as being the modern-day _The Catcher in the Rye_ , and he looked at this with natural scepticism. “It’s an important book to me, but someone gave me another copy.”

“And you couldn’t have given me the nicer copy?” Percy teased.

“That is my precious copy,” Newt said sharply. “Take care of it.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. My bag just didn’t like the book very much, I think.”

Percy almost never read any books outside of English class, and he tried to resolve himself to reading this (it _was_ a present from Newt, after all), though he had the distinct feeling it was likely going to gather dust in a corner of his room. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll see you later, then.” He ran a hand through Newt’s hair and rested it on the side of his face to lean in and kiss him – they hadn’t really kissed much at all, but when they did, it was nice, like the reprieve after a long day.

“See you,” Newt said softly, watching Percy disappear along the street before closing the door behind him with a sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should probably mention that, if you wanna yell at me on Tumblr, it's @newtscamanderisms, but I also made a Tumblr for this fic!Newt, and it's @teencultclassic if you want to enjoy Newt's film still blogging! Also, if you haven't read it, totally check out Solitaire or the author's latest book, Radio Silence. They're both amazing books.


	6. at this moment, you mean everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt hosts an 80s dance, and dancing is therapy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for this whole entire chapter. I can't write smut to save my life. Or dancing. Or anything. But here it is anyway, and I hope I make up for it all with Newt dressed as David Bowie.

Newt was indeed back in the school the next week, though his attendance was erratic and he missed a few days. Queenie had spoken to someone and posters for the dance were plastered over almost every wall and door in the school, with the words “80S FASHION ONLY” possibly the most prominent on the posters, which amused both Newt and Percy to no end. Newt resolved at some point during lunch while in the middle of sandwiching his Lunchables (“how fucking old are you, Newt?” Percy had groaned) that he was going to tell Theo about Gellert at least by the end of the month. Percy said he didn’t have to rush about it. Newt replied that if he didn’t hurry, his mother would beat him to the confession.

He was slightly alarmed when he checked his phone the week before the dance and he had a text from Queenie that read: _Meet me after school on the day of the dance in the foyer, I’ll need all day to get you guys looking fabulous!_ She had divulged absolutely nothing about what he was going to be wearing, except that he would like it (Newt doubted this). He had started on another mixtape, his playlist for the dance already sorted (Newt and the 80s went together like bread and butter), and somehow Percy could tell by the drafting Newt was going through that something was changing in his head again, and when he stayed a while at Newt’s house to help revise, he stared at the speakers as they blared out Rogue Traders’s _Voodoo Child_.

“Are you alright?” he asked Newt. “This music is a bit more out there than you are usually.”

“Is it?” He smiled blankly. “Should I change it?”

“No,” replied Percy, “I like it.” He also liked it when the album finished and Newt changed it over to Pulp’s _Different Class_ , which he was both surprised and not surprised that Newt owned – he was used to Newt almost exclusively listening to either David Bowie or indie rock, but he had also seen every single Arctic Monkeys album on his shelves somewhere, and quite a few from Jimi Hendrix, Placebo, Teen Suicide, and Kasabian. He slightly preferred Newt listening to David Bowie. It seemed more natural.

 The day of the dance was a Friday, leaving the group the whole day to get dressed at Tina and Queenie’s house, which was where they ended up. It wasn’t the largest of houses, but the colour palette was warm and it seemed, much like Newt’s own room, like a home, and Queenie had more than one mannequin stood up, wearing all manner of bizarre outfits. Percy looked at Newt, who looked at Abernathy, who looked back at Newt and made a face of sheer panic, so Newt gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“This will be fun,” he said, “I swear.”

Newt rather unexpectedly really _did_ like his own outfit: Queenie had found him the entirety of David Bowie’s outfit in the _Life on Mars?_ video, and as Newt did up the buttons of his baby blue blazer, he beamed at himself. He looked quite good, and though Queenie hadn’t been able to find any shoes for him, Newt had discreetly borrowed a pair of Theo’s black Doc Martens (they were, by some peculiar miracle, the same shoe size, which had led to many a shoe swap, and he had not been sure that his suede brown pair would work with every outfit, whereas black suited everything). When he emerged from the bathroom, his jumper and jeans tucked away in his bag, Percy and Queenie were arguing over whether or not he was going to wear her lovingly crafted Boy George outfit, and he paused to turn to face Newt.

“Holy fucking Jesus Christ taking a motorbike to work,” he whispered. “You look _incredible_.”

“Yeah, and you will too, so come on!” Queenie insisted. Tina had guided Abernathy and Sera to their own mannequins, leaving two for the Goldstein sisters, and she smiled at Newt, who gave her a slightly awkward smile back, feeling terribly self-conscious in his suit – while it looked good, he found himself feeling slightly bad about the fact that he was not _actually_ David Bowie. Queenie took his arm. “Come on, honey, let’s leave sourpuss over here to get dressed. We need to put your makeup on.”

“Makeup?” Newt questioned shyly.

“Well, it’s not him if you’ve not got the blue eyeshadow!” she said, and Newt had to agree with this, so didn’t argue and just sat down and shut his eyes as she brushed a colour with a name like Blue Jean over his lids with a brush that felt a little funny, but also very soft, and Newt half-wondered if she was colouring his eyebrows at a point, and then he opened his eyes because she was putting something along the ridge of his cheekbones. She beamed as she fetched a mirror and shone Newt’s reflection back at him: he did not entirely look like him, but like a better version of him, and the blue eyeshadow drowned the rest of his face, but somehow he looked good anyway.

When he returned to the living room, Percy was still blatantly refusing to become Boy George (Abernathy had gotten changed, however, and was wearing a brown shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a red polka dot layout over the chest, tucked into a pair of blue check trousers that ballooned out before tucking into a tight fit at the ankle and belted with a plain black belt, and he was wearing a pair of black and white Oxfords to go). Queenie fetched Abernathy and took him off to the kitchen, declaring that she was going to fix up his hair, and Percy looked at Newt with a look of what was almost reverence.

“I think I see why they liked David Bowie,” he said, and gave Newt a kiss.

“Go on,” said Newt, “go get dressed. Come on. If I can be David Bowie, you can be Boy George.”

Percy gave up and shuffled away in defeat just as Sera emerged from the bathroom. She was wearing a Michael Jackson outfit, complete with red jacket, and gave Newt a curt nod. “You look good.”

“Thank you,” he said. “So do you. And thank you for your help in organising this.”

She shrugged effortlessly. “No problem. They tend to pull me in to organise every event anyway, so it was just nice to actually volunteer instead of being volunteered.” She turned to the bathroom. “Think he’ll actually go through with it?”

“I hope so. The rest of us are going along with this, even though this outfit certainly doesn’t make me feel comfortable, and Abernathy looks like he wants to perform a triple backflip out of the window and away from us all.” As much as it sounded like hyperbole, that was the exact thought that had struck Sera when she had looked into his eyes, those of a rabbit in the headlights, and she was rather glad to hear that she was not alone in this thought.

Percy emerged from the bathroom surprisingly quickly, wishing he could disappear into the depths of his hat, which was lined with so many streaming beads that, if he turned too quickly, would slap him in the face, and that also hid most of his shirt, which was yet again concealed by a necklace of colourful pom-poms. “End me now, Newt.”

“You look good,” Newt said, which was true. Despite his own hatred of his outfit, Percy stood tall automatically, oozed confidence from every orifice, looked like he owned being a member of Culture Club.

Queenie spent the afternoon finishing their makeup and hair: Newt’s, she was able to style mostly like Bowie’s, flicked up at the ends, and Percy managed to avoid having makeup put on him, while Tina, who was dressed as Siouxsie Sioux, endured what felt like an entire eyeliner pencil being used on her. Queenie was fine, dressed as Molly Ringwald, and she did her best to cheer the group up as they walked back to school a little early, in time to finish setting up.

Percy and Queenie took charge as front of house, welcoming the many guests from all of the school’s years and even some who weren’t in their school. Queenie welcomed the barista from the coffee shop, who somehow did not have to dress differently to look at home, and Newt idly played a few warm-up songs as the hall began filling up, while Abernathy set the lights on and set them up to switch through various disco-like settings. After a while, Percy hurried up to Newt.

“We have to have at least a hundred or so people here; we should get started.”

Newt nodded. “I think I might have a heart attack on stage.”

“You want me to stand with you?”

“Please.” Newt stood atop the stage and tapped the microphone, feeling his stomach dip uncomfortably. “Hello everyone. I’m glad you could all make it tonight. The 80s is one of my favourite decades of all time, and a benchmark of style and music, the music in particular being what I particularly appreciate. So I have spent a long time working on the playlist, my friends Seraphina and Abernathy have set up the hall, and my lovely friend Queenie has helped in the planning of everything, as well as helping to dress me in this quite amazing suit. I hope you all enjoy yourselves tonight, and again, thank you all for coming!”

He hurried over to his iPod, and found the real beginning of the playlist, turning to Percy as the first few bars of _Come On Eileen_ rang out in the hall. “Is this special?” asked Newt, putting his arms around Percy.

“Everything about you is special,” he replied, “from the bottom to the top, and inside out. The way you sit curled up on your bed and the way you hold a book and the way you read them like you’re completely and utterly in love with them and the way you play your records and the songs are always incredible – it’s special.” Percy paused as he placed his hand in Newt’s and one on his waist. “I think there may be something about you and me and saying things we instantly regret.”

“Yes,” said Newt. “Quite. We should probably dance.”

“We might regret that too.”

“Dancing is the highest form of regrettable action.”

“We’re going to look so fucking dumb, do you know that?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure I care.”

Percy looked at Newt, at his eyes, which glittered under the alternating red and purple lights, and pressed a kiss to the bridge of his nose, hoping that no-one would notice, and very secretly wishing that he could be kissing down Newt’s neck instead, because on the very rare occasion when he did, he could usually elicit a soft whine from the other boy, but he had to maintain a sense of public decency – or any kind of decency, since he was about to dance to Dexys Midnight Runners.

“You better love me,” he mumbled.

“Like everything,” said Newt, and they took off, galloping down the hall, fuelled by exhilaration and the sound of each other’s laughter and the radiance of each other’s expressions, like the moonlight that broke through the clouds, and also by the beat that throbbed through the floorboards, and by the adoration that spilled through Newt’s chest and all out of him of the song, and of the decade, and of everything it – and this moment – meant to him.

They sat down afterwards, exhausted by the strength of their own dance, _Rio_ taking over. In the distance, Newt could see that his barista had arrived and was dancing quite enthusiastically with Queenie. Abernathy, who still looked painfully stiff, was doing something that could vaguely resemble dancing while speaking to someone who Newt did not recognise, but was distinctly female, and dressed as Vivienne Westwood, and Newt took mild objection to the use of the ‘be reasonable: demand the impossible’ shirt, which was circa 1976 and not the 1980s, but he decided to keep quiet, because his playlist was also dotty in its timing. He reached his hand out for Percy’s; they closed around each other.

When they were not resting or drinking the selection of diluting juices and chewing on sweets or tiny sandwiches, they danced like no-one was watching, throwing themselves into the full swing of every moment, of every beat: they had the energy where it was needed, could waltz on each other’s shoulders when the tempo slowed. Sometimes they separated off from each other to exchange words: Queenie was complimenting how well Newt looked, mentally, and he congratulated her and the barista, whose name he never quite managed to remember (it was a tragically common theme in Newt’s life); Tina, who spent most of her time at the event taking care of a boy who never left the corner, said a few words to Percy; Sera said more than a few words to Percy and squeezed his arm tightly as she said them, and Abernathy came up to Percy, holding a cup of very watered-down orange juice.

“How is Newt?” he asked.

Percy was flattered by Abernathy’s continuing care, when he got nothing in return. “He’ll be okay.”

“I hope so.”

Newt was not willing to go up on stage again, so Sera did it on his behalf, nearly two hours after the event had started, and announced that there was going to be two more songs: one for which everybody should dance, and a final one as they ushered out.

“Percy,” said Newt, “I think this is our moment.”

“Is it?”

“It is.”

As he recognised the introduction of _Total Eclipse of the Heart_ , Percy knew, and he agreed: it was their moment. He stood up, opposite Newt, and took a deep breath. He was going to embarrass himself. Not embarrassing himself would be impossible in the face of Bonnie Tyler; in fact, he could see Newt already moving his lips and singing along, and he knew that he had not a shred of dignity left in his soul, and he knew that if his mottled companion could do this, so could he, and that it was _important_. He was not a sappy soul (or at least that was what he liked to think), but he knew that a lot of Newt’s happiness rested upon this moment, and so he was going to do this. He was going to make this worth every second.

They began circling each other, their hands held in the centre between them, and every now and then (he fell apart) they pulled together for a spin, but their moment, their time, their _culmination_ was when the song began to break. Newt was a featherweight and Percy was perfectly capable of lifting him and in his ecstasy Newt could feel no fear, just the dig of Percy’s hands in his hips and the way he felt as if he were flying; and then they came down again for the quiet, breathing heavily against each other, their heads tucked in each other’s shoulders, and Percy slowly dragged his lips across Newt’s neck in the way that made him gasp and whine a little, but the people around them stopped almost entirely when the song broke, because there was nothing normal about what occurred next.

It was as if it had come out of The OA. The movements between them were erratic, irregular, but emotional, charged. They ducked and came up and span and _moved_ , really moved in a way that they’d never felt their muscles move before, and then they came together like two whirlwinds coming into a hurricane. It was like nothing ever before and nothing after, a moment of sheer _individuality_ , of self-expression beyond expression, of love and loss and pain and feeling.

Of course, to everybody else in the room, they looked utterly ridiculous.

Newt was sweating quite profusely when the dance came to an end, changing to UB40’s _(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You_. Queenie had done her best to set his eyeshadow, but some of it was running anyway, leaving what looked like blue tear-streaks down his face: he looked like he was about to burst into _Ashes to Ashes_. He had undone the buttons on his blazer, and Percy took off his hat, tucking it into his waist. Newt said his thanks again to Sera and Queenie and Abernathy and to Tina and walked home with Percy, who felt as if he might never get his breath back.

“Do you think we have to take these costumes back to Queenie?” Percy asked.

“I’m tempted to keep mine,” Newt replied, toying with his tie. “Even though I probably won’t wear it again.”

“Newt,” said Percy.

“Percy,” said Newt.

They didn’t say anything else, mostly because they didn’t need to; they both trooped up Newt’s stairs, somehow avoiding both Frank and Cat Stevens, who were camped out on some of the steps, and entered Newt’s bedroom. His curtains were open and the light was spilling through from the stars. Newt laid his blazer aside on the back of his desk chair and fumbled with undoing his tie, winding it around his hand a few times before putting it down. Percy watched him take his shirt off, wonderstruck by the explosion of freckles on his back, like a paint spill of pale brown, and pressed his mouth to the top of Newt’s spine, reverential as he kissed down; Newt’s skin was soft and firm, responsive and warm to his touch.

“You are so fucking beautiful, Newt,” he whispered. “Do you even _know_?”

Newt did not answer this, just turned his head round to meet Percy’s kisses and helped him undress, though they stumbled over each other’s layers, blushing with inexperience and clumsiness, though it was lost in the gasps between them at the presses of each other’s lips to their skin. Percy dragged his tongue slowly along Newt’s nipple, eliciting a whine that was almost pornographic.

“You sure this is alright?” he murmured into a triplet of moles on Newt’s ribcage.

“Yes,” he groaned, “yes, I am very bloody sure; just do me, please, I can’t stand it.” Percy felt his pants (or lack thereof) tighten at Newt’s bluntness and he nodded, running his hand along the length of Newt, who could barely keep himself still, clawing at his bedsheets and rocking his hips and _weak_ , unable to hold himself together at just touch, because though he had more experience than Percy, they were both inexorable messes of people with swirling emotions in their guts and an unstoppable desire for each other. Newt moaned as Percy began to pump up and down, finding a stride in the perspiration that hung between them, a stride that was derailing any trains of thought in the other boy’s mind and leaving him with uncontrollable want. “Percy,” he said and then followed this with an almost swallowed “fuck” before he reached his hand around to the back of Percy’s head and pulled him down.

“Say my full name,” was what Percy said before he took Newt in his mouth, salty and a little wet already, but God he was just so damn perfect everywhere, and the writhing he incurred with his lips made him feel like he stood atop the world. Newt pulled on his hair, tangling his fingers, the name “Percival” on his lips sounding like a prayer; Percy took advantage of his eyes being screwed shut with pleasure to reach down into the pocket of his coat and pull out a bottle of lube (he hadn’t expected that this would actually happen, but he liked to be prepared, and he also liked to imagine), slicking his fingers as he moved his mouth for a moment to roughly suckle Newt’s nipples again as he lifted the other boy’s legs to place a finger inside.

“Oh, _fuck_.” Newt dug his clipped nails into Percy’s bare shoulders. “That – that’s good.” He choked out a “please” as Percy teased a second finger, and Newt hissed loudly as it entered, the pain coated with his ecstasy as Percy moved his fingers, testing, exploring, though there was not much to find but that every single move of his hand reduced Newt even further until he was near crying with rapture.

Percy found himself looking up at Newt for approval, despite the stupidity of it, because Newt would have his head thrown back, hair obscuring everything, and his eyes would be closed because he couldn’t keep them open, and yet he somehow sensed that he was needed and his clear eyes, still ringed with that beautiful blue, shone as he nodded, but Newt sat up, pushing Percy to the bed and pinning him there as he sorted himself into a straddle, legs pushed in to either side of the older boy’s chest.

“You’re forward,” said Percy. Newt smiled blearily, tipsy on the welcoming prospect of orgasm and being filled with Percy’s endowed cock.

“What do you want me to do? Lie down and scream, which is likely what will happen anyway?”

“No, you stay where you are. It’s hot watching you. You’re so expressive and it turns me on.” He placed his hands on Newt’s hips. “You ready?” A nod, and he began to push himself into Newt's beckoning ass; he had to stop because it was so damn tight and because Newt, who was torn between feeling sore and like everything that had been wrong had just righted itself, had asked him to, using the opportunity to pull away and lean onto Percy’s chest, drizzling his fingers with lube and pushing them into himself with absolutely no hesitation, pressing his forehead into Percy's collarbone as he stretched himself out a little more, shamelessly fucking himself. “Sure you’re okay?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Newt grunted, and with his newly gained fearlessness, lowered himself onto Percy again, steady through his want to just push down and be filled, holding onto the last reaches of his sanity as he went, and then he was full and he thought he might erupt from the inside out at the sensation. He grasped at Percy, though there was hardly a thing to hold on to, so he made do with twisting a nipple (“Jesus, Newt, _shit_ ”) as he began to move himself up and down, stifling his moans, which were too loud, too much – it was too much; he felt like all of his nerve endings had had a spark set to them. Percy was gasping now, too, rocking on Newt’s tight ass, feeling like he finally understood why Newt looked such a glorious mess above him, all trembling features and hitched breaths and perfect little whines, beckoning with euphoria.

Percy began to lose it when they hit their stride, a rhythm of thrusting and moving and jerking and loving and being; he felt like he had ascended above heaven and Olympia and was at the summit of a tall mountain of feeling fucking incredible, though from the explicit noises Newt was making, he had gone higher, and as they collided, Percy fully enveloped in Newt, he went rigid, grasping at the sheet beneath them and moaning.

“Shit,” he said. “There. There. Hit me there, please, I can’t take it.” Percy angled himself and thrust again and Newt had to cover his mouth to hold back a scream, his toes curling. “Percival, there, please! I – I’m going to...” He went again and again, harder and faster, getting off on watching Newt try to curl up and stop him, the pleasure too much, overloading his senses, but he pushed on until Newt peaked and went very still, shaking a little as he spilled himself onto Percy’s chest, his eyes squeezing shut and a teased whimper escaping his lips. Percy wondered if he might be dreaming, because the face he had just seen on the other boy had been one so captivating that it might've been pure fantasy, all bliss and open mouth and fucking beautiful.

He was sure that it wasn’t fantasy when Newt wrapped his hand around Percy’s cock again and jerked him off with what was almost a kind of ease, the tips of his fingers always knowing just when to stray into the territory of hip bucking and joint locking, and he went at it all at once, ducking his head down to swallow as much of Percy’s come as he could, feeling like he ought to, watching the boy writhe and gasp beneath him with tender curiosity.

“You are a dirty fucking bastard, Newt Scamander,” Percy said in sheer surprise when he was again capable of words. Newt was scrubbing a stain from his duvet cover, surprisingly composed considering his screaming state just moments earlier, and he looked up with a gentle laugh.

“Carnal desires make animals of us all,” he replied. Percy sat up to kiss him.

“Are you telling me you have carnal desires?”

“I know you like to think of me as innocent, and I try to too, but I’m sadly not so.” Percy ran his hands through Newt’s hair a few times before tucking it behind his ears and out of his face.

“I want to see you like that again.” Newt snorted.

“So long as you don’t look so surprised that I possess the ability to ride you and tell you what I want.”

“I’ll try; you just don’t look capable of it.”

“I once beat off a mugger with a violin.” Percy frowned at him and tried not to form a mental image of this. “What I’m saying is, don’t assume that I’m incapable of anything. I desire love, just like everyone. Or – most people. Can’t forget asexual people.”

“Yeah, save me the moral story, and just pull that face again the next time I fuck you. I could’ve gotten off just from that.”

Newt couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “I don’t think I can help myself when I’m with you.”

When Percy woke up, Newt was sitting at his clavinova, hammering out the chorus of _Life on Mars_ , and while Newt was not too proud of it (his lack of practice caught up with him), to Percy’s ears, it was something quite spectacular. Newt stopped when Percy pulled himself up.  
  
“Sorry, did I wake you?”   
  
“Don’t think so. I just woke up.” He clambered out of bed. “Sorry, but I better head home. My little sister has a dance recital today.”   
  
“Okay.” Newt stood up, swinging his arms around Percy, who, as ever, toyed with Newt’s hair; it had gone messy again and there was nothing left of Bowie in his multicoloured sweater or dark brown jeans and fair skin. “I’ll see you at school.”

“You too.” Percy grabbed his coat from the floor and pulled it on. “Thanks for organising the dance. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.”

“Thanks for dancing with me, even if we looked like twats.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the only guy I’d ever dance with.”


	7. come on and feel this - i'm still alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy takes Newt on a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an apology for that last chapter, here's another one!

The months passed in relative quietude. Newt was recovering well, but occasionally springboarded entirely unexpectedly into misery, and not even Percy could help him all the time, despite his frequent visits. He took a holiday to Paris and brought Newt back a few bits and bobs from the Pompidou Center as well as an eccentric collection of French records and CDs, a surprisingly pristine copy of _The Great Gatsby_ (“purchased at Shakespeare’s,” he noted proudly, opening it up to its Shakespeare  & Co. stamp), and some T-shirts with strange designs on them, Newt’s favourite being a shirt from some kind of religious choir that was a little rough around the edges and patched up at its collar, much like most of his own clothes, and while Percy made an excellent distraction, he could not always be of any use; in fact, his abilities to talk Newt through bad times seemed to be deteriorating, and he blamed this on his mouth’s insistence to ask Newt if he’d called Theo. He never had, always avoiding the topic when they spoke on the phone or on Skype, and Percy never helped Newt’s shameful guilt.  
  
It was a long day of a long week. Abernathy stepped out of the fire exit and pushed through a new layer of shrubbery, twigs whipping at his smart trousers. He swallowed, hoping he wouldn’t receive too much reprimand for the scratches, and came to sit down next to Newt, who was hunched up by the base of a surprisingly sizeable tree, quite literally biting back tears, blood staining his bottom lip, the only thing visible beneath his layers of hair, the curtains that hid him.   
  
Abernathy scooched closer and put an arm around Newt’s shoulders, a slightly feverish heat radiating from him. He didn’t move for a while, but eventually Newt shifted his head so that it pressed into Abernathy’s chest.   
  
“It’s gonna be alright, Newt,” he said.  
  
“I know,” said Newt. “But it’s not alright now. Why isn’t it alright? When will it be alright? What if I have to wait years?”  
  
“Well, you’re getting counselling now, right?” Newt nodded. “And you’ve got your whole family and all your friends supporting you. So you’re going to be alright soon, because you’ve got all the help you need.”  
  
“I still can’t believe you,” he murmured, trying not to stain Abernathy’s jumper with his tears. It looked nice.   
  
“Yeah. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t love you.”

“You could always love me. Just, I wasn’t allowed to love you.” Abernathy sighed, but restricted it, feeling bad for allowing himself to sigh as if _he_ had problems. “But I keep going, just like you, even when it hurts sometimes because I miss you. I get up every day and try my best.”   
  
Newt reached up, taking Abernathy’s hands in his. “I’m still here,” he said. “I never left. I just came back.”

“Okay,” said Abernathy, not sure he understood, trusting that Newt did.

It took Newt almost an hour that night to build the courage to ask Theo when they would next have time to have a long conversation, and he scribbled the date and time next to his bookmark in _The Great Gatsby_. He didn’t tell anyone that he had arranged the call, and when he made it, he left his phone on speaker and placed it on his desk, next to the history textbook he was borrowing from Queenie, allowing him the room to pace nervously.   
  
“Hey, Newt,” said Theo, cheery as ever. “What is it you wanted to tell me about? Mum told me you’d been bad lately – depressed, I mean.”

Newt’s voice cracked more than once when he told the story, reaching up to rub his eyes with the sleeve of his blazer. Theo sat in considered silence and Newt could almost see him at the strange desk he had, a cast-off art desk from a nearby school, coated with cracking paint, with a drawer beneath where Theo kept his books and miscellaneous papers, clutching his phone. He wondered if Gellert was there, too. He hoped not.  
  
“I am going to tear that piece of actual human shit limb from limb until he regrets ever having set eyes on my little brother,” Theo said coolly after a long time.   
  
“Please don’t,” Newt interrupted quickly. “I don’t want him to know that I told you.”

“Shit, Newt, why didn’t you tell me? How long has it been – almost a year? And you didn’t say a thing – oh, Newt, fuck, I’m so sorry…” Hearing Theseus Scamander swear was not something that happened, especially not three times in the space of a minute. “I’m flying over. Mum said you were bad.”

“Don’t you dare jeopardise your degree for me, Theo,” Newt said firmly, surprisingly strong in his tone: he knew how to talk to his brother and to be somehow level-headed to Theo’s (amateur) dramatics; both of their feelings could sweep them away, and while Newt tried to withstand the torrent, Theo would swim away in it, but sometimes they both ended up held under. “I just needed you to know. It’s important.”

“Thank you for telling me. I know it was difficult.” Theo sighed. “I want you to be okay and safe, Newt. I just want to know that you’re okay – or going to be okay.”

“I have a counsellor. She’s teaching me how to cope, but she says it’ll get worse before it gets better. I think – I feel like it’s going to be okay. Just that last push.”  
  
“Yeah? That’s good. Listen, how is that boy of yours? Percival? Mum tells me that he’s a ‘lovely boy’.”

Newt briefly wondered if his mother had ever stopped to be weirded out by Percy before remembering that, before gaining weight and settling down for a family life, she had been a punk too: their house was peppered with black and white portraits of her with her wild bright ginger hair (though the colour wasn’t visible, Newt could imagine it) spiked into a Mohawk, her wide variety of platform boots, and her studded leather jackets. She had been an art teacher before they moved, and bought up a shop when they moved where she sold her artwork as well as jewellery and clothes from other local artists, and now she dressed like Newt, in warm fuzzy layers, though hers were brighter and more eccentric. Percy would look like nothing in comparison to her. “It’s good. He’s taking me on a day out on Broadway soon. It’s a date.”

“Shouldn’t you have been on a date before?”

“We’ve been to lots of coffee shops together,” Newt offered. Theo rolled his eyes, glad that Newt couldn’t see him: his little brother was so hopeless. “I think it’ll be nice.” He paused. “Er, Theo, this is a little strange to ask, and I’m sorry if I scar you, but there’s no-one else to ask.” He took a deep breath. “How often should couples – er, have sex?”

Theo cringed; he did not want to know what his baby brother was up to, but unfortunately, it had come to that time in their lives where they had to get over their awkwardness. Teenagers had to ask _someone_. “Well, I don’t know exactly because it varies, so really just when you want.” Newt had been with Percy four more times, each better than the last; their clumsy fumblings had begun to take shape as they began to understand each other better, though Newt occasionally worried that his understanding was flawed: Percy seemed to have less time for him, less patience – where Newt wanted to slow down, he wanted to speed up. “Just be sensible about it. And stay safe. You know that I love you.”

The date went well: they went to the Hard Rock Café, which Newt had never been to before, and he marvelled at the glossy grandeur of its interior, and he enjoyed the food, and he also enjoyed holding Percy’s hand across the table. It was warm and inviting and Percy looked like he was having a good time, too; afterwards, they went to see the musical of Matilda (Percy had seen not one, but two copies in Newt’s bedroom), and Newt loved it (he did not usually like musicals particularly, but he enjoyed this one, feeling his mother’s love for the genre in his bones). Theo had sent over some money for Newt, to be spent wisely on cheering himself up, so Newt bought a Mike Wazowski Tsum Tsum at the Disney Store, attracting a lot of attention from the teenage girls there. It was true, Percy thought: Newt was handsome, and very cute, with the sort of clothing popular amongst hipster boys; while he attracted little attention at school, where everybody knew that he was shy and awkward, here people just saw the twinkling in his eye as he squeezed the little figures, the same charm that had attracted Percy when they had walked down the school corridor together, day after day.

He reached out and took Newt’s hand and, when they were out on the street together, kissed him tenderly, a hand cupping Newt’s cheek.

“Get lost, you fucking freaks!” someone shouted as they went past. Newt flinched at this, but Percy closed his hands around Newt’s.  
  
“It’s alright,” he said. “He’s just an asshole. I got you.” He turned outward, onto the street. “Should we find a coffee shop somewhere? I know you must be _dying_ without your caffeine fix.”

  
Newt smiled, a little faltering but bright nonetheless. “Okay,” he said, and then, “thank you for the great day, Percy.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They went to a coffee shop Newt had never been to before, and he soon found out why: the coffee was awful and the customer service was frosty at best. Still, the seats were comfy, at least.

“How are you today?” asked Percy.

“A lot better,” answered Newt. “Mostly thanks to you. I like spending time with you.” He took a sip of absolutely foul coffee. “And I didn’t skip a single class this week.”

“I can’t believe that skipping class and you were ever in the same sentence. You’re just such a good kid.” He had to correct this: “Well, I thought you were, anyway. Whether or not that’s true depends on how you define ‘good’, I guess.”

“Sometimes I find that the good kids – that being those who get good results or behave well in school – are often the most troubled. So maybe ‘good’ and skipping class _do_ come hand in hand.”

Percy reached forward to tuck some of Newt’s hair behind his ear, and when he did he made the mistake of looking, really _looking_ at the boy’s face. “Shit.”

Newt blinked, confusion evident in the blue of his eyes. “What?”

“Sorry. You’re just fucking cute.” Percy leaned back. “I always imagined that I would end up with someone big and muscly, you know, because that was what I found hot. It was such a surprise when I found myself finding you attractive. And you _liked school_. But here we are.”

Newt giggled. “It’s all thanks to the world of academics that you know me in the first place. So give it that, at least.”

Both of them agreed silently that the coffee was shit, so left quickly, Newt pulling his coat tight around him as they began the long walk home. He halfheartedly placed an earphone in and simultaneously reached for Percy’s hand.

“What are you listening to?” asked Percy.

“ _Vlad the Impaler_. Kasabian. And your voice.” He smiled.

Newt fell asleep almost immediately when he got home, ruining Percy’s plans for anything, though he was quite tired himself and couldn’t blame Newt, whose sleep schedule was nonexistent, for being tired. There was never enough room for him in Newt’s single bed, so he set his coat down on the floor, but he wasn’t tired, so he decided to take a closer look at Newt’s CD collection – he always tried to have a look, but there were so many crammed in there that he barely knew what Newt actually had. One shelf was crammed full of Bowie albums, and on the shelf beneath, an album was poking out, not pushed back in all the way. The cover said it was _St Vincent_. Percy pushed it back in next to an album called _Art Angels_ , which looked a little worse for wear.

It didn’t take him long to find Kasabian: though the music was in no discernible order, the albums took up half a shelf. Percy looked through the track lists before finding _Vlad the Impaler_. He wondered if he should put it on a playlist somewhere, and then he wondered if Newt had playlists. He certainly had mixtapes, dozens of them crammed into his open desk drawer, one of which was actually labelled Percy. He picked it up curiously, but the only other thing written on it was _Rebel Rebel_. He rolled his eyes. Newt certainly thought of him in predictable terms, but when he glanced over at the sleeping boy in the corner, he found himself unable to care about that, and just that Newt looked like he was fucking _heaven sent_.

Percy didn’t mean to still be awake at three in the morning, but he was, and he started as he heard Newt rather abruptly sit up. “Newt?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I wake you?” he asked blearily, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “I’m a bad sleeper.”

“I was awake. Something up?”

“No, I’m fine.” Newt yawned. “Could you come up here? I’m cold.”

“Sure.” Percy stood up and gently eased himself in next to Newt, who was actually cold to the touch, so Percy put his arms around Newt and squeezed him close, kissing his forehead and then the bridge of his nose. “Fucking hell. What are you, Frosty the shitting snowman?” Newt chuckled a little, pushing his face into Percy’s chest as he mumbled an “I love you”.


	8. and there's a taste in my mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt forgets that he has to organise a date; nothing goes very well after.

It was left up to Newt to arrange the next date, but he found himself stupidly busy: he had countless tests and assignments due, and he was trying to find the perfect birthday present for Theseus, only even remembering he had to arrange a date while in the common room, sitting with Tina and Abernathy and sifting through flash cards on Chemistry, the trio firing facts back and forth at each other before getting slightly bored and injecting snippets of conversation between facts. Tina was bemoaning her sister’s dating of the ginger barista, who was forever pulling pranks, and the word “date” was like a bullet to Newt’s chest.

“Bugger!” he exclaimed, making a boy in the corner jump and Abernathy flinch. “Date – date – oh dear, oh dear…”

He shot a text over to Percy: _funny coffee shop 6pm?_ He hoped it would be good enough: after a certain time, the barista started serving his interesting blend of alcoholic drinks and he had an eager disrespect for the law. Newt wasn’t much of a drinker, but if someone offered, he would have a little, and he (rather correctly) guessed that Percy was a slightly fonder drinker than him.

He felt bad for his lack of attention, even though it wasn’t really his fault – life had gotten him, and it had even been good, if good could be found in huddling round textbooks night after night. Before he left, he pulled a tweed blazer over his sweater in an attempt to look slightly more official. The café usually got busier in the evening hours, with the offer of cocktails and drinks and a happy hour as well as its selection of peculiar hot drinks, and the barista was joined by a blue-haired girl whose hair was pulled up in a bun. She had a watercolour flower tattoo that sprawled up the side of her arm and a septum piercing and she was wearing paint-splattered overalls; she smiled at Newt when he came in. He was earlier than Percy and took a seat in the corner, toying with the sleeve of his slightly too-long blazer.

The barista approached him. “Ditched both eyebrows and... well, punk eyebrows?”

“No. Just waiting on punk eyebrows.”

“And are you planning on getting completely and utterly pissed to the point of no return with punk eyebrows?”

“I don’t think so. More like pleasantly tipsy.”

“Shame. I would love to see punk eyebrows pissed.”

Percy arrived dead on six (Newt, who was almost never early to anything, had only arrived early because he had once said he’d meet Percy at seven and gotten an earful for arriving at half past) and sat down next to Newt. “And this is your idea of a date, huh?”

“Well, both of us are too young for pubs, but in here, age is a second thought on the path to having fun. Or so says Fred.” (Newt had squeezed his name out of Queenie.) Percy glanced over just in time for the barista to arrive with their drinks – he was beaming ear to ear, as he always seemed to be, with that glint of mischief in his eye.

“For our favourite little Newt,” he said, “electric cool-aid.” He placed a very blue drink in a little glass on the table and then another blue drink by Percy. “That is a little stronger. Don’t go crazy. Or do. It’d be fun.” He winked and disappeared off again.

“He is fucking mental,” Percy mumbled, shaking his head and taking a sip of his drink. It tasted sweet and sour at the same time and exactly as peculiar as it looked and it made his head feel strange and fuzzy; Newt’s was sweet and not particularly alcoholic, and he curled up into Percy’s lap so that the older boy could stroke his hair, a favourite pastime of theirs. They discussed their week, their feelings, Newt’s multitude of tests and his quest for Theo’s present, Percy’s grudging need to take his sister to her ballet classes (his parents had been out of the country for most of the week), whatever music Newt had been listening to that week, whatever he had been reading, whatever Percy had been doing (one of his more punk friends had shown him how to ride a motorbike), and they discussed things that didn’t really matter and people in the room and out of the room and people who were famous and people who deserved to be more famous, and all the while their drinks drained and they made their way through a few more, the barriers between them dropping sip after sip. Newt would stroke and kiss Percy’s hand, his fingers, his wrist; Percy kissed along the back of Newt’s neck, in his hair, on his shoulders.

“Newt,” said Percy, into his hair.

“Percy,” said Newt, into his palm.

“Let’s play a game. Let’s play a game where we’re totally honest with each other.”

“Did you read _Will Grayson, Will Grayson_ or something?” Newt asked, looking up over his shoulder and at Percy, whose eyes were shut and his brow furrowed. He took another sip of his drink before he deigned this question good enough to be answered.

“No, I did not. I don’t even know what that is. So what do you say?”

“I say okay.”

“You don’t put any effort into me the way I put effort into you.”

Newt frowned. “What?”

“I try so hard to please you. I buy you stuff, and I take you to nice places, and what do you do? Take me to this – fucking – coffee shop that we’ve been to a thousand and one times before, and give me stupid mixtapes. When do I get your attention? When do I get your love?”

“You do,” Newt argued, sitting up and turning around. “I love you. I do. I’m sorry that I don’t spend a lot of money. I put a lot of heart into those mixtapes.”

“And here?” Percy raised an arm.

Newt conceded. “I’m sorry.”

He could not bring himself to be honest: he was hurt by the fact that, despite the fact that he had been recovering for most of their relationship and had done his best to see Percy and make him mixtapes and pass on books, Percy still saw nothing in this. He did not see that Newt had been through some hell on his own, and he did not see the pain, and Newt didn’t want to inflict any hurt back. Sure, he had his gripes with Percy: he was a little unnecessarily brash, and he rushed Newt a little too much, but for the better part, spending time with Percy was what he loved most, even if it was just with a coffee or with a textbook or sitting up in Newt’s room listening to _Joy Division_.

So where Percy’s honesty had been unkind, he just wound his fingers in with Percy’s and said quietly, “I love you. That’s the truth.”

Not long after, in the in-between of their next round of drinks, Newt pulled himself up from the sofa and shuffled into the bathroom, partly because he needed to pee, and partly because he needed to cry, both of which could be dealt with in the confines of a toilet stall. The bathroom was empty, so he relieved himself before walking over to the rows of mirrors. His eyes were reddening and aglow with moisture and he squeezed them shut, resting his elbows on the countertop by a sink and his head in between so that he didn’t have to look at his own face as he cried.

“Newt?” He looked up with a start as he heard the barista’s voice. He was standing on the other side of the sinks, looking at Newt with a face of concern that almost reflected Queenie’s – perhaps Tina’s complaints that her sister and Fred had been together all the time weren’t that unfounded after all. “Oh God, kid, are you okay? Is it punk eyebrows? Should I put something nasty in his drink? Hey...” He put a careful arm around Newt, who sunk right into him, sobbing quietly. They didn’t know each other well, but they knew each other well enough to want to look out for one another; Newt frequented the café, and their faces were familiar to each other. “You can’t cry over him, not with his fashion taste. It’s absolutely abysmal. Find somebody who can colour coordinate.” He patted Newt sympathetically on the back. “Next time, get someone with alopecia. Then you won’t have to worry about _any_ eyebrows.”

“Thank you, Fred,” he said, wiping his tears on the back of his sleeve. “But I don’t know anyone with alopecia, so I think I might be doomed.”

“Shave off your next boyfriend’s eyebrows?”

“We’ve not broken up yet.”

“Shave off punk eyebrows’s eyebrows! Oh, I want to see him look like a potato.” Newt giggled at this image and pulled himself back, tucking his hair behind his ears  and wiping his eyes again; a quick glance at the mirror told him that they were still too red to go back, but Fred excused himself to go back to working (“sorry, Newtie bud, but responsibility calls – _ugh_ , responsibility”). He hoped against hope that Percy was just venting from the back of his mind, and that this wasn’t something that truly bothered him. Was it really so bad that Newt had different values?

When Newt made the executive decision for the two of them that they were going home, he received a wary glance from the bluenette behind the counter, who was rinsing out a coffee mug. Percy had slightly underestimated his ability to drink (and had entirely forgotten that he hadn’t eaten dinner) and was stumbling weakly, so had to lean on Newt’s shoulder. “Get home safe,” she called.

As Newt and Percy shuffled along the street (Newt was only forced to shuffle because he was having to practically carry the older boy), Percy stopped quite abruptly, causing Newt to almost trip over. “We can’t stop now. Come on, Perce.”

“No, no, ’s not that. You know what I said earlier – I didn’t mean it too hard, you know, I still love you. I still think you’re what everything is.” (That last part did not make sense to Newt.) “Like a supernova or somethin’. So don’t you be sad.”

“Okay,” Newt said softly, feeling his heart speed up a little. Percy was looking at him, and really _looking_ : they had a habit of looking past each other, but now Percy was looking at Newt, seeing him, seeing his splatter of freckles and curious blue eyes and the shape of his lips.

“Supernova,” Percy agreed and pressed his mouth to Newt’s, trying to be slow and assured, but really being a little messy and full of too much tongue, and Newt couldn’t help but be amused by this, smiling and putting his arms around the other boy. “Fucking beautiful.”

“Thank you, Percy,” said Newt, “your compliments are delightful.”

He shifted again and continued to hobble along the street, wishing that Percy wasn’t quite so heavy and wasn’t quite so drunk. The flares of his red tartan jeans were scraping along the pavement and Newt heaved him round a corner, almost running straight into Abernathy, who jumped back.

“Oh, good gravy, it’s just you,” he said, sighing. His hair was flattened to his face by a downpour he hadn’t prepared for (Newt, British born and raised, always carried an umbrella, but had missed the rain by being indoors) and he was soaked through.

“What are you doing out?” Newt asked, moving Percy to a better position on his shoulder. The other boy appeared to be zoning out, staring into the distance with a glazed expression. “It’s a bit late for a school night.”

“Could say the same thing to you,” Abernathy replied, avoiding eye contact and tugging restlessly at his sleeves and collar. “Dad kicked me out.”

Newt clicked his tongue. “Come with me.”

“No, I shouldn’t.”

“And you shouldn’t be out on the street with no umbrella and no shelter at this time of night. Come on. Get Percy’s other arm, would you?” Abernathy begrudgingly obliged, taking Percy’s other arm and following the winding matrix of streets that led back to the polite avenue where Newt lived. One of the lights on the street had blown, casting most of it into darkness, and there was a gathering of people outside the pizza shop. “We should get him home first.” They reached the end of the street with little difficulty and Newt straightened up Percy, shaking him out of his reverie. “Go to bed. Don’t come into school tomorrow. I’ll bring chips for lunch.”

“Okay,” Percy said blearily. “Night, Newt, you beautiful piece of ass.”

“There’s a little more to me than that,” Newt replied politely, and pointedly watched Percy, making sure that he was indoors before he hurried back to Abernathy and along the street. “I’m hungry. Do you want a pizza?”

Abernathy said “no” at the same time his stomach performed a growl that was so loud it roused the attention of the group standing outside the shop, so Newt took this as a “yes”. His mother was already in bed, so he tried to stay quiet as they cut up the pizzas in the kitchen, the lightbulb above them on the fritz and occasionally blacking out. They ate in relative silence, Newt tired and Abernathy troubled, and after they had finished eating, camped out up in Newt’s room; Abernathy insisted that he couldn’t take the bed of his host, so slept on the floor (this led to him being leapt upon by Cat Stevens at least twice), while Newt sat on his bed, his bedside lamp on as he sat quietly reading a book.

“Newt?”

“Yes?”

“Could you put some music on?”

“What would you like to hear?”

“Anything.”

Newt did not exactly have ‘sleepy music’, and he mused for a little while about what would be appropriate. He decided on his vinyl 12” of _Chaleur Humaine_ and sat back down as _iT_ began to hum to life, opening his desk drawer on the way to pull out a packet of Love Hearts that Theo had sent over in a care package of sweets.

“Can I have one?” Abernathy asked shyly, and Newt nodded, passing down one that said _text me_. He stared at it, confounded, wondering what on earth the text meant as he popped it into his mouth, dissolving in a sugared powder; where their hands touched they held them there, together. “Hey, Newt.”

“Yes?” Newt asked, trying to be polite with a sweet under his tongue.

“How do you get to be so happy?”

“Well,” said Newt, flexing his fingers and then closing them around Abernathy’s again. “I try to find the joy in everything – in every little thing and in every person. The world is really beautiful when you stop to look, and everyone and everything is wonderfully complicated – and then, I don’t really understand or get along with people all the time, but I appreciate people smiling. There’s nothing quite like seeing someone happy.” He laughed at Abernathy’s wonderstruck expression. “But mostly I listened to music and spent time with the people I love. And I had to feed everyone, so I had to get out of bed eventually.” He sat up a little, but not so much as to disentangle their hands. “Would you like something to take care of – a plant or something?”

“Okay,” Abernathy said, stuck with that facial expression of sheer bewilderment at Newt’s soaring head of ideas as he let go of Newt, who rifled through his crammed windowsill of new plants, plants that were too small to have earned their places elsewhere. “As long as it’s easy to take care of, you know? Don’t want to kill something.”

Newt selected a plant with tall and straight thick leaves. “Well, she won’t get you up very often, but tell me how you get on with her. Mother-in-law’s tongue.” ‘She’ was a fairly small plant in a pot to allow for growth and Abernathy felt like a horrified uncle just holding the snake plant.

“It’s called mother-in-law’s tongue?”

“That’s right.” Newt ducked under his growing ivy and lay back down. “I called her Ellie, but I’m told that ‘normal’ people don’t name their plants or talk to them, which I think is frankly ridiculous.”

“You talk to your plants?”

“They listen.”

Abernathy had to agree with this, so he too lay back on the floor, his snake plant a few metres away so that he wouldn’t accidentally roll on it if he was lucky enough to get to sleep, staring up at the ceiling and accidentally straight into the eyes of Patrick Swayze, which made him feel a little awkward, so he rolled onto his side. It was true: neither of them slept the whole night, perhaps a few minutes at a time if they were lucky, and Newt occasionally got up to change the record (he was still not sure what constituted as sleepy music, so ended up playing a bit of Jake Bugg and Mark Ronson for a lack of knowing what to do). At six, Abernathy decided he should head home, so Newt bundled him in a flecked tartan scarf and sent him on his way.

He stepped out into the streets and sighed, trying to steel himself for the inevitable tirade that would come from his mother when he got home. He rounded the corner, leaving Newt’s little corner of the world behind, and started as he ran straight into someone.

“Sorry!” he yelped, noticing that the person had been holding a bag that he’d dropped, so Abernathy picked it up: a khaki side bag with political badges pinned on it, advocating somehow both Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and voting remain and voting yes (Abernathy was not sure what this was a yes to). “I am so sorry...”

“It’s fine,” the man said apologetically. “I should’ve stopped before looking through my bag.” He slung it over his shoulder and shut the buttons on it; he almost stopped Abernathy’s heart. He had a collection of light blonde curls in the style of David Bowie on the _Heroes_ album cover (which Abernathy only knew from it actually being propped up on one of Newt’s bookshelves; according to Newt, it was one of his favourite albums of all time) and bright green eyes and he was wearing the kind of outfit that Newt would wear (burgundy sweater tucked into a pair of dark ripped jeans with a brown cowboy-style belt and a pair of very, very worn cherry red 1460s). “Are you okay?”

Abernathy tried to pretend that his eyes weren’t as red as he knew they would be, and then paused. This boy – man – person – didn’t know him, and they would probably never see each other again, and this was just a chance encounter on the street, so he could afford to blurt out: “no.”

“Oh.” The man paused. “Where are you headed?” Abernathy pointed. “I’m on a walk. I can come with you for a while, if you’d like somebody to speak to.”

Abernathy dug his clipped fingernails into his palm and he nodded. “Okay,” he said. The man smiled.

“Let’s go, then, shall we?”

For Newt, the day at school was normal. Abernathy didn’t turn up, which perturbed him a little bit, and his lack of ability to do anything particularly well in shop class meant that he ended up with a very well-sanded clock and not much else. Percy had clearly taken Newt’s advice and was also not in school, so Newt decided to spend the last periods of his day in the common room, where a boy with black hair was sitting in the corner, the only other person there. Newt strolled up to the speakers and plugged his iPod in.

“Do you mind?” he asked. The boy shook his head; Newt smiled and put on _Sound and Vision_.

After school was over, he made his way to the chippie (the fact that there was one was a complete blessing to Newt, who could’ve survived entirely on a diet of sweets and chippie chips, but also a curse because they never tasted as good as the ones back home) and then to Percy’s, armed with two portions of chips nestled under his arm. Percy’s parents were almost never home and never cared, so his sister answered the door; she was still in middle school, with a head full of dark permed curls and, despite her youth, the same scathing look as him, and while she wasn’t a punk like him, had eyeliner smeared around her eyelids, was wearing a tattoo choker, and huge hoop earrings. Newt wondered briefly if parental issues lead to dressing in black.

“Could I come in, please?” he asked.

“Only if I can have a fry,” she said.

“They’re chips,” he said.

“Chips are like Lay’s. Those are fries. And you’re not coming in until you give me one.”

Newt kept his indignant Walkers comment to himself as he handed her a chip. She looked at the brown sauce on it as if it were poisonous, but popped it in her mouth anyway and stepped aside, letting Newt along the tightly packed hallway and straight into Percy’s room, right at the very end. He was sitting at his desk and trying to force himself through a particularly painful essay on metabolic rate and turned round, lifting his head.

“Shit,” he said. “You look like something else in that jacket.”

Newt smiled shyly, wishing he could tug at the sleeves of his (well, Theo’s) brown leather jacket, though it was a light brown, more of a tan colour. It suited Theo better than him, and it hung a little on his slimmer bones, but he couldn’t help but like it anyway. “Thanks. I brought chips.”

“Oh, you absolute fucking blessing, you.” He almost snatched the portion of chips from the crook of Newt’s elbow and stuck right in, eating with his fingers. Newt, despite being quintessentially British in most aspects of his life, was not British when it came to eating chips: he ate them with a fork. A chip fork, but nonetheless a fork, and when they had scoffed their way through, Percy washed his hands, binned the wrappers, came back in and immediately kissed Newt, caressing the other boy’s face, one hand around the back of his neck and one running across his warm cheek. “I’ve been thinking about you all fucking day. About taking you to pieces.”

“You’re not disassembling me today,” Newt said, gently shoving Percy away. He frowned.

“What?”

“Did you mean what you said to me last night?”

“Well, come on. You put in a lot less effort than me. You have to admit it.”

Newt was still. He looked away. “But that’s not true. I put all the effort I can expend into you, and that’s usually all the effort I have.” He chewed on his lip and then on one of his nails. “It’s hard to have any sometimes. But I just want to see you, and that’s sometimes what I used to get out of bed. When that was an issue.”

“When that was an issue. Exactly. You’re fine.”

“But I’m not, Percy, and that’s what you’re missing. It doesn’t... it doesn’t go away overnight. Or over a month, or two, or maybe three – I don’t know how long. I know that I’m better, but you just don’t seem to look at me and understand that I’m still unwell. So I don’t think you care about me that much.” Newt almost couldn’t bring himself to say it; he clutched a handful of his own hair and practiced his breathing like he had been taught: in for four, out for four, in for four, out for four. “I’m not an ideal romantic partner, Percy. I am not someone you can have as a bedpost or as a decoration. I’m afraid that’s not what I will be for you.”

“That’s not what you are.”

“Really? I’m not sure I believe you.” He wanted to bite back his tears, but let them go anyway, streaking down his face and staining across his freckles. “I love you, Percy, but I don’t think that you love me or ever have. You had fun being the good man who helped me through the hard times, and now you’re bored of it. It’s no fun anymore.” He channelled as much of his willpower into his body as he could, and, with the effort of a hundred men, looked up. “Isn’t that right?”

“Newt. Newt. What are you saying?” Percy ran his hands through Newt’s hair, root to tip, staring at him, a quiet wreck. “I can be better. You know I can be better. I’m sorry.” He tried to hold himself back, but he was crying a little too, and angrily wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. He couldn’t hold back from kissing Newt, touching him, running his hands along his neck, his collarbone, underneath his shirt, appreciating every single inch of him as he always had; Newt reciprocated without a second thought, except knowing that he would regret this, but that in the moment they were possessing, with their feelings pounding through their veins, he knew that he loved it, knew that he loved the feel of Percy’s muscle and the rise and fall of his chest when he breathed, and they both collapsed together knowing full well that this was probably the end, and that they were going to make it count.

Newt left for home just a few hours later, his heart in his mouth.

He broke up with Percy the next day, and, unable to deal with the fact that any touch of his hair reminded him of having Percy touch it, took a pair of scissors to his head in the confines of his bathroom and cut it. He had considered taking a razor to his own head, but he didn’t: if he shaved his head, it would look as if he had gone full breakdown, and he was determined that he was not going to break again. He was going to build new bridges.

So he chopped and chopped, and stared at himself in the mirror, his shoulders covered in brown-ginger locks, and smiled slowly.

Sure, he wouldn’t be able to embrace Percy anymore, or make love to him, or kiss him. But he was letting go of something that shouldn’t have continued, and he was going to start something new, and he was _determined_ that the life he was beginning in these seconds was going to be a damn good one.

Yes, thought Newt Scamander. This is going to be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter - well, more like an epilogue, to go! And after this, there are lots more parts to come (I've written about two that are finished and need editing, and I'm on my third), and hopefully I'll be able to post those soon! Thanks to anyone who's still reading, I really appreciate it!


	9. nothing gonna get me in my world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt tells his story to someone; Percy tries to understand.

Credence almost can’t believe that the story is over. He stares through wide eyes, the coffee in his hands cold beyond cold; the minute Newt had started the story, he had been lost, lost in the stories of people and events and emotions beyond his own understanding. He sets the mug back down on the table in Newt’s kitchen, wondering if Percy too had sat at that chair once, drinking coffee.

“What happened?” he demands. “To Abernathy. Is he okay? And Percy?”

Newt laughs, his smile wider and softer and wiser than the one he smiled back in those days, a smile that was terribly troubled and that was full of a besotted misery. “They’re fine. Abernathy moved in with his boyfriend a little while ago and has cut as much contact with his parents as possible. He’s the happiest I think I’ve ever seen him. I suppose he took my advice to heart.”

“And Percy? I mean, he looks happy, but...”

“He’s not with anyone, but we’ve managed to resolve all the tension between us. We have been friends for a long time, so it would’ve been a shame to not be able to talk to him.”

Credence lets out a sigh of relief at this, and then pauses, trying to condense his feelings about the tale he’s just been told into a series of questions and/or statements. He doesn’t even know where to start: he can’t believe, for one, that Newt has been through so much, and for two – “wait, do you have pictures of you with long hair?”

“I have pictures of me with long hair and dressed as David Bowie,” Newt replies, rifling open a drawer in the kitchen and pulling out a folder of developed photos, sifting through them as Credence watches over his shoulder: Newt and Percy, arms wrapped around each other, David Bowie and Boy George; more pictures of the party, of Queenie and Tina and Sera and Abernathy; Newt and Abernathy in the common room, a candid, smiling at each other; Newt and Percy at Fred’s coffee shop; everyone in the drama crew, Percy at the front and Newt peeking out at the back; Newt and Percy in Newt’s room, two figures among the madness. Credence is in awe of Newt’s hair, tousled and messy and shoulder-length.

“I think I prefer it short,” he says as Newt puts the photos away and back into the drawer. “The way it is now.” He wants to touch Newt’s hair, to feel it, but it’s so calculated in its chaos that he doesn’t want to ruin the arrangement of it, so he just gives Newt a weak smile, and then he dawns on a memory: “Oh, what happened to Queenie and that guy at the café? Fred?”

“Well, as far as I’m aware, they’re still together. I saw him at the drama show. He looks the same as ever.”

“And you’re okay now? You’re all okay?”

“All okay. Somewhere along the line, I learned the secrets of happiness. I think.”

“What are they?” Credence looks serious. Newt is disappointed that he doesn’t truly know the answer.

“David Bowie. And you.” He leans across and gives Credence a peck on the lips, beaming at the pleasant surprise on his face. “Don’t worry. Every story has a happy ending, because we demand one, and we make it so. Now come on.”

Credence nodded, nestling his head in the crook of Newt’s neck. Beck’s _Dreams_ is playing somewhere in the background of the house, and he breathes in, looking up at the boy he’s in love with, and looking at all the depths of his face and his pale blue eyes, and he feels like now he can appreciate them all.

 

Percy’s heart ached, sore with rejection and Newt’s teary eyes, and he stormed into his room as if someone might notice and dropped himself at his desk, rubbing his forehead for restlessness.

It was still there, on his desk, gathering dust: Newt’s copy of _Solitaire_. Percy picked it up and flicked through it: it was full of pencilled annotations, some relating to the book and others more random – dates, places, meetings with Abernathy and himself, the amount of ATP produced from one molecule of glucose. One annotation said “my wardrobe is mostly brown. am i a cardboard box?”. The sheer stupid Newtiness of the statement almost ripped his heart out right there and then, and he bit his lip, hard. He caught, every now and then, a P scratched in next to certain statements which he was rather sure referred to him.

He sighed, smoothed down a folded-over corner of the book, and opened it. The cover page, too, was adorned with writing: “ _To Percy: life is strange and so am I. –Newt_ ”. He ran his thumb over it longingly, as if it would bring everything back, but the world stayed the same, as did the book. He rolled his eyes at himself for being so stupid, and turned the page.

“ _’And_ your _defect is a propensity to hate everybody.’_

 _‘And_ yours _,’ he replied with a smile, ‘is wilfully to misunderstand them.’_ ”

This last sentence was underlined twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to upload this chapter until tomorrow, but it didn't take as long to edit as I expected, so here it is! I hope you guys have enjoyed this as much as Credence enjoyed the story! And hold your horses, because there'll be more as soon as I get it all sorted!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so excited to finally post this! I've been working my butt off to edit this, because I have so many more chapters written but only just paused to go back and actually edit. This project is my baby and thank you for reading it and I hope you enjoyed it, because I've enjoyed writing it! I should hopefully be posting very regularly, as I just need to finish final edits on everything!


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